


Past, Present, Past

by AltUniverseWash



Series: Pyrope & Crocker, Investigators [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Noir, Bisexual Female Character, Crime Fighting, Crime Scenes, Crimes & Criminals, Cults, Detective Noir, Detectives, Drama, Eldritch, F/F, Film Noir, Gritty, Homestuck AU, Human/Troll Relationship (Homestuck), Investigations, JaneRezi - Freeform, JuneVris, Kissing, Lesbian Character, Magic, Massachusetts, Murder, New England, New York City, Non-Explicit Sex, Organized Crime, POV Bisexual Character, POV Female Character, POV First Person, Plot, Plot-driven narrative, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Private Investigators, Romance, SBURB (Homestuck), Secrets, Supernatural Elements, Thriller, Trolls (Homestuck), Witchcraft, cosmic horror, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:42:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 52,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltUniverseWash/pseuds/AltUniverseWash
Summary: The year is 1935 - three years have passed since Jane Crocker, private eye and Detective Terezi Pyrope helped dismantle the New York Council. But one day, an old acquaintance from the past shows up terrified to talk to anyone except Jane and Terezi.Jane and Terezi head up to Boston to help their one-time associate. They soon uncover a mysterious group that wields a long-standing and malevolent influence over the forgotten corners of New England. Before long, they find themselves embroiled in another mystery that will lead them to the dark, abandoned places where the very fabric of reality stretches... and sometimes breaks.
Relationships: Jane Crocker/Terezi Pyrope, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Vriska Serket/June Egbert
Series: Pyrope & Crocker, Investigators [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632040
Comments: 18
Kudos: 21





	1. Past Knocks Twice

**New York City, 1935**

The name’s Jane Crocker – I’m a private eye.

Where I hang my hat is a place called New York City. You may think you know it, but you really don’t. You already know the story about how the Alternians came to Earth three decades ago. You know about the troll parts of the city and about the Councils. You might even recall a bit of a sticky situation involving a certain private eye and a certain detective a few years back. Well… sort of.

See, that part of the story managed to stay out of the local yellow rags. The coppers took full credit on the busts they made. I guess the fella in the lobby with a nice neat hole in his head and the troll dame upstairs who’d been bled dry were just casualties of some good old inter-Council violence. Nothing to get particularly worked up about.

Probably didn’t hurt that I was playing a bit of mattress polo with the gal who ended up in charge of the investigation. That part ended up working out pretty well and all of a sudden Jane Crocker, private eye was persona non grata as far as the law was concerned. A certain Vriska Serket managed to avoid mention as well. So that was all pretty decent, generally speaking.

I feel like you know most of the rest of that part – how Detective Terezi Pyrope became a former detective and started up a bit of a business with her favorite gal-pal.

New York City went through a bit of a shakeup after all that. Having one of the prominent human citizens who was a cornerstone of the whole state both murdered and implicated as a rapist who was selling off young gals tended to get folks riled up. Especially when combined with a general uprising of most of the midbloods and lowbloods in the city. As much as the highbloods would’ve wanted the status quo to stay in place, that would’ve been pretty much impossible at that point.

So New York ended up integrating a bit, gradually. Trolls moved out from their places and humans moved in. I wouldn’t call it ideal, given the general human and troll tendency to be pieces of trash, but it was definitely an improvement.

Interestingly enough, this whole situation lent itself pretty nicely to the up-and-coming business of Pyrope & Crocker, Investigators. Being that one of our founding members was former NYPD (and Alternian to boot), we ended up with a lot of the bits and bobs that the Force didn’t want to or couldn’t touch. Except we laid down some ground rules on this from the out – we weren’t going to be anyone’s hired goons, regardless of the pay. After all, we were still getting our monthly benefit checks from our mysterious benefactor (who was definitely not almost-certainly a Ms. Jade Harley), so money wasn’t really an issue.

Instead, we took cases that could actually do some good. A lot of missing persons type stuff. A lot of cases where racists were being violent against trolls or humans who happened to be the “wrong” skin color. That took us top-to-bottom on the city and then some – we were out in Brooklyn and Queens in the expanding Alternian communities there, then up in the Bronx where the black community was flourishing on top of the economic advantage of having a flood of Alternians moving to northern Manhattan. The trolls didn’t care much what color skin humans had, and it seemed that the black folks were a lot less likely to treat them like sub-human garbage.

Things went well for a couple years. Terezi and I were going steady and living together and that was pretty swell. She was a great gal and we appreciated each other. We spent a ton of time together in and out of the office and got to know a lot about each other, which worked out real well for both of us. The polo was pretty entertaining too, if you catch my meaning.

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in mid September when everything kicked off again – it’s a long story, and rushing the telling isn’t going to do either you or I any favors, so I’d suggest you settle in on this one.

The weather had cooled off just a bit – at least to the point where I wasn’t feeling like I was sitting in a dang blast furnace every time I had to be in the office. Fridays were usually pretty slow in general – folks tended to go out and get drunk, which meant more business for the coppers busting up brawls and lot less business for a couple of private eyes who mostly tracked down missing people and investigated crooked landlords and such. If we’d had a case we might’ve been out pounding the booze-soaked pavement looking for information, but we’d closed the last one on the docket the day before and had basically nothing to do.

I was at my big desk in the middle of the office and Terezi was off at her desk to the side, feet kicked up on top and scribbling on a piece of paper. I appreciated that she let me have the big desk in the middle – that was a gesture of love that definitely didn’t go unnoticed. Trust me, I’d paid her back in kind over the last couple years. Use your imagination.

We had the windows open and the breeze coming in was nice – that kind of cool pre-autumn wind that kissed your neck like a pretty dame and made you want to split and spend the rest of your day in the park.

“Hey, Rezi,” I said, still half inside of my thoughts, “you want to split and spend the rest of the day in the park?”

Over the scratching of her pencil on the paper, I heard her chuckle. “I’m getting there, babe. Give it another twenty to see if anyone comes in?”

“At this point I think they can just leave a message with our secretary.”

She laughed – that was code for “shove a message under the door” and it had definitely happened on multiple occasions.

“Let me finish this and we can get the hell outta here.” She went back to scratching on the paper and I smiled. I figured the fact that we hadn’t gotten sick of each other in the last three years was a good sign. She was swell, and I was in love.

This is the part in the narrative where you realize that I’m building to something bad. This is a story with some hills to it, and we’re up at the top of one right now, about to come rolling down.

There were two sharp knocks on the door.

Terezi and I looked over at each other. It wasn’t necessary on her part, but I think she did it out of habit from when her eyes still worked. She sniffed and frowned.

“What’s she doing here?” Terezi got up and walked over to the door, turning her head from side to side, probably trying to figure if there was something up. She got to the door and pulled it open.

Vriska Serket was standing in the door.

She looked basically the same as she had when I saw her just over three years ago. She was a tall gal, all long and kind of elegant-looking, but in a way that suggested you really didn’t want to cross her. Her hair was black and went all the way down to her waist in a kind of wavy cascade, all crowned with a pair of orange-yellow horns.

Today she was wearing a dark gray suit and skirt, impeccably tailored, and it looked like being up in Boston had agreed with her.

Or those were my thoughts on the matter until my gaze settled on her face. She looked haggard – her eyes were sunken in like she hadn’t slept properly in days and her eyes darted around nervously. My mind was immediately rushing back to three years ago. Not to the way she’d looked when she first came into my office – that had been all false confidence and smiles.

This was the look when she was convinced that the love of her life, a certain June Egbert, was going to have her life destroyed by a vindictive New York Council.

“Terezi, can you lock the door, please?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. Vriska was standing there, just kind of… standing. I walked over to her and put my hand gently on her shoulder.

“Vriska? Do you want to take a seat?” She shuffled over to the chair that sat across from my desk – the one where the clients sat. Very much like the one she’d sat in three years ago (although that specific one had been trashed when the place was tossed by Council thugs).

I saw Terezi motioning with her hands –  _ what’s going on here? _ I shook my head – no idea. The dame had just strolled in here like it was three years ago, except this time she’d left her patent attitude somewhere far behind her. I took my seat behind the desk and looked across at her – it was easy to see she’d been crying before coming here.

It was hard to remember the last time I’d actually heard from Vriska. She and us weren’t exactly in regular contact with each other. She’d sent us a couple letters from Boston, thanking us again for all of our help and explaining how things were going with June and her and the Boston Council. It all sounded just hunky-dory.

“Can you two take a case?” She hadn’t wasted a single second getting to the point. But she sounded… desperate? It was hard to place her tone, but that seemed right. “There’s something I need you to look into. I’ll pay you whatever your going rate is and then some. It’s urgent.”

I felt like we’d bonded a little after everything we’d been through, but this was all business. Or maybe not – she seemed like she was trying to hold it together even as it was unraveling at the seams.

I glanced over at Terezi, who shook her head – still couldn’t figure out how she could even tell I was looking at her.

“Doll, for you the going rate is zero.” Terezi kind of cocked her head to the side when I said it. “Plus expenses,” I added quickly.

Vriska smiled for the first time since she’d walked through the door. “Okay.”

“What’s the case?”

“I’m worried that someone is after June. Or me. Or both, maybe. I got a very strange telegram about a week ago. Before I could decide what to do I got a letter in the mail yesterday and I knew I needed to go for outside help.”

She’d been holding two folded pieces of paper. She handed the first one to me and I instantly recognized the telegram slip. I unfolded the paper and read aloud, mostly for Terezi’s benefit.

To The Heir June Egbert -(STOP)-   
Your place has been secured -(STOP)-   
Your role has been determined -(STOP)-   
The Order of the Creators is awaiting you -(STOP)-   
We are vigilant we are eternal

I turned the paper over in my hand, seeing nothing that would explain the message or its origins.It was downright unsettling – Vriska’s sudden appearance made a whole lot of sense in a whole little time.

“There’s more.” Vriska handed me a letter. It was written in a plain, somewhat blocky hand. Again, for Terezi I read the letter out loud.

Heir June Egbert,   
  
The time is coming soon when you must choose to fulfill your role. This must be done of your own free will and in good faith or our good works will never come to pass.   
  
This world is corrupted, but by your power we can cleanse it and begin anew.   
  
Let all know that the Beast is the same as the Creator. They are birthed from the same mind and the same heart.   
  
Let all who have understanding reckon the number of the Beast, for it is a human number. It is the sacred number 413, the number of the names of God, the Creator, the Beast – the Alpha, the Omega, and the Circle that Binds.   
  
The Order of the Creators   
  
Α◌Ω

I put the paper down on my desk and stared at Vriska.

Terezi was the first one to speak this time. “What… the… fuck?” Her way with words was definitely something I loved about her – I don’t mean that insincerely!

“I have no idea,” Vriska said. “I would say it’s just some weird religious thing but… they know her name. They sent both of these to her directly at our house. If I hadn’t gotten to it first… I don’t know what the hell is happening!”

She looked down at her hands and her eyes were wide – staring. Staring at nothing, but she was  _ seeing _ something. Something that hadn’t yet happened – something that she was deeply afraid of.

“What do you want us to do, Vriska? What do you need that your people in the Council can’t provide?”

Her head shot up and that afraid look was there in her eyes – I wasn’t used to this. “No! The Council isn’t an option here! I don’t know who’s in on this and who isn’t! I don’t know anything and I can’t say anything because someone will hear! I know you’re not on the take… that’s why I need you two.”

“Once more, doll – what do you need from us?” My tone was soft as I could manage.

“I need you to come with me up to Boston. Visit the Council, see where June works. Talk to people. Poke around about this Order of the Creators but be subtle about it.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “This can’t get loud… this can’t turn into three years ago. I love June and I can’t have her getting caught up in something that’s going to hurt her!”

And there it was – the truest, most unenviable position to be in. Someone you cared about was on the business end of a heater and didn’t even know it. You wanted desperately to keep them safe, but you had no idea how to do it. Your first instinct was just to throw yourself in the middle, but you were never sure if the bullet wasn’t going to just tear right through you and hit them anyway.

I don’t think I really had a choice in the matter, you know? If I’d still been in my smokes habit, I would’ve lit one up right then – just to accentuate the inevitability of the whole situation. Because whatever happened next, I was already committed. Seeing the look on Terezi’s face across the room, I could tell she was too.

God help the both of us, we were all-in.


	2. The Maid of Boston

**North End, Boston**

In spite of being licensed as a private detective in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I’d only actually been to Boston a handful of times on cases. Once a dame’s well-known husband decided to withdraw most of his life savings and run up there with some floozy and I had been hired to ensure that he was adequately informed that he was welcome to do whatever he wanted so long as he maintained his wife in the manner to which she was accustomed unless he wanted certain photographs to be released to the press. I supposed that was technically blackmail but my moral compass had been a bit skewed back then – meaning I was broke and I needed the money.

The other time I’d been to Boston I was chasing down a runaway teenager on behalf of their family. When I got up there, it turned out she was working as a waitress in Cambridge near the colleges. It also turned out that she’d split because her family had a tendency to beat her when she did anything they considered “unladylike” – a category that apparently included talking back to them and existing in the wrong way. I’d given her the entirety of my pay for the job and went back and told the family she’d died of a heroin overdose – a story they’d been only too happy to believe. I said my moral compass was skewed back then, not completely broken.

All this is to say I had a strange relationship with the city. It felt like a foreign country and I wasn’t familiar with the conventions.

One convention I  _ was _ familiar with, however, was how mobsters named their establishments, and standing outside the “Alternian Expatriates Social Club” all I could think was that they must have a very cozy relationship with the local coppers, or else the Force here was basically bought and paid-for.

Terezi actually laughed when we arrived outside. I was able to restrain myself, but I got where she was coming from. Vriska glared at us.

“The local law doesn’t much care what they do,” she said quietly. “You’ll understand why soon enough. It’s not like when the New York Council was running things down there.”

The building itself was pretty nondescript in and of itself. Windows were covered and the sign itself was plain and unlit. I imagined that even if it were nighttime, the Alternian Social Club wouldn’t exactly be lit up like a candle.

Vriska started to walk toward the door, but stopped and turned to Terezi and me.

“Listen, this may not be like New York, but there’s some stuff you need to know before we go in there. The woman that’s in charge here might seem pleasant and maybe a little bit flirty, but she will absolutely make sure you’re fitted for a Chicago overcoat if you cross her. Don’t talk about New York – that’s a sore spot in particular. In fact, don’t talk if you don’t have to. I’ve been doing this for a lot longer… let me lead.”

“Vriska,” Terezi put a hand on her shoulder. “What do you want us to be doing exactly? You still haven’t really been very clear about that…”

“Just observe. We’re going to make a couple stops and I want you to understand who the major players are around here. Seriously… follow my lead and don’t start any shit.”

With that, Vriska pushed in through the door and we were plunged into the dim, hazy interior of the Alternian Social Club. The scent of tobacco and liquor clung to the place like a shroud, and the overall effect was by turns inviting and somewhat repulsive. Terezi was smelling the air and turning her head. Vriska led us on, straight back. She nodded to the bartender – a stocky troll fella with short horns – on the way back and he looked disinterested.

It wasn’t all that different from dozens of similar rat-holes I’d been down in my day. It might as well have been the Diamond Cabaret in the Bowery, although without the baggage that I associated with that place. Couldn’t help but feel the similarity though. That was the thing about living life – it had a way of constantly catching up to you.

The social club narrowed down as we went back, leading eventually to a single-file corridor that ended in a door that looked like it was made of considerably sterner stuff than the front door. Vriska knocked in a quick pattern and a small window in the door slid open to reveal a scowling troll dame.

“Oh, it’s you.” Those were the only words spoken and the troll dame opened the door, letting us all inside. She had on a too-big brown suit and I could tell even at a glance that she was packing a shotgun underneath. We had officially crossed from the front to the actual heart of the business now. As soon as we passed the door, it was slammed shut again. “Give me whatever iron you’re holding and get the fuck out of my face.”

We handed our guns to Rude Troll Gal and she nodded that we were good to go. Vriska nodded back and led up further back into the social club, passing storage rooms and offices. We went up a flight of stairs, around a bend back toward the front of the club, and were at yet another set of doors. Before we walked inside, Vriska stopped and whispered to us.

“Remember, don’t be assholes. Don’t say shit to her except maybe  _ yes, Ms. Maryam _ . If she asks you to call her Auntie Porrim, you say  _ yes, Ms. Maryam _ , you got it? Keep your mouths shut and maybe you walk out of here again.”

With that, Vriska opened the double doors.

Normally I’d probably lead in by describing the room as we entered, but in this case all my attention was drawn immediately to “Ms. Maryam.”

I knew enough about how the troll thing worked to expect her to look similar to Kanaya – so that part wasn’t a surprise. She had the same light-gray skin, tall stature, and long, graceful features. What  _ was _ a surprise was all the ways in which she was different.

Porrim was wearing a short green dress that left her arms and most of her shoulders bare. She had turned her body into a canvas covered in a variety of ornate tattoos – that was something I didn’t remember seeing on a troll before. Her lips and eyebrows were pierced with a variety of simple rings. Her hair flowed down her back and had a vaguely tousled, unkempt look.

“You’re staring,” Terezi whispered with a nudge. There was no way she could know that, but I was definitely staring. I reeled it in before it could cause problems.

Porrim drew the eye so much that I almost missed the man standing in the far corner. He was a tall, somewhat lanky human, wearing a subdued gray suit and a pair of sunglasses. His skin was pale and his blonde hair was slicked back.

As we walked in, Porrim was smiling at us.

“Ah, come in, come in! Vriska! It’s good to see you again!” She looked over at us. “And this must be Jane Crocker and Terezi Pyrope – the private investigators. Welcome to Boston, my friends.” She flashed us a sharp-toothed grin.

As if sensing my apprehension, she continued, “Don’t worry, I know who you both are. I’m in the business of being informed, and if I had any issues with either one of you then perhaps you would be serving as lobster bait right now instead of standing her ogling me.” She winked and I felt a little bit of a flush run through my face. She was easy on the eyes, I’d give her that.

Vriska kind of bowed, which was weird to see, and smiled back. “I just wanted to make introductions while they’re here in town. We won’t be stepping on anyone’s toes – I brought them here to help June out.”

I supposed that wasn’t technically a lie. They were both still smiling, but this whole exchange felt tense. It was as if a slip of the tongue or a wrong word could end very badly, very quickly. I didn’t know if Porrim was holding, but I knew that the Rude Troll downstairs was – and most likely the tall, silent type in the corner as well. Porrim walked forward and wrapped her arms around Vriska in a hug. When she finished, she held Vriska’s shoulders at arms-length in a gesture that seemed to hold an equal quantity of maternal and intimate. It made me a little uncomfortable, but if Vriska felt the same way she was smart enough not to show it.

“That’s wonderful,” Porrim said. “I genuinely love what June’s been doing for this city. And I know all about New York’s philanthropic private eyes – the ones who take the cases for the poor and downtrodden who the law doesn’t care about and who don’t have the money to pay for their own law. To put it bluntly, I admire both of you greatly.”

I was about to say something when I felt Terezi nudge me, so I only nodded. Terezi leaned up against me, placing a hand gently against my side and squeezing slightly to let me know she was there. I appreciated it – I’d make sure to tell her later, one way or another.

“Where is June right now?” Vriska asked.

“Oh, she’s in South Boston right now, at St. Mary’s. She’ll be there all day if you plan to drop by.”

Vriska nodded, carefully. I’ve never seen anyone nod carefully before, but that’s what she did – as if she was calculating each element of each angle of the gesture. “Thank you, Ms. Maryam. We’ll go there right away.”

“Oh please, Vriska, I’ve told you a thousand times to call me Auntie Porrim!” She winked, and I got the immediate impression that Vriska would be intensely uncomfortable doing that.

“Yes, Ms. Maryam – thanks for taking the time to see us.”

She nodded dismissively and I knew it was time for us to be on our way out. Without further ado, Vriska led us back out the office doors and down the stairs. I was half-expecting Porrim to add some kind of commentary as we were on our way out – some kind of “be careful in this town” or something. But that would’ve been silly – she didn’t have to do that. The Boston Council might not be populated with the scum of the Earth that the New York Council had been, but there was no question that this was  _ their _ town. Which meant, as far as Porrim Maryam was concerned, this was  _ her _ town.

Our weapons retrieved from the Rude Troll and us out the door again, Vriska visibly relaxed. It was as if someone had come along and uncoiled her.

“Oh thank God,” she said, her shoulders slouching. “Thank God that went well.”

“Vriska, what the hell?” Terezi was still keeping her voice down. “You were terrified in there – you mind filling us in on what the fuck that was all about?!”

Vriska turned toward Terezi and she was shaking. I wasn’t sure if trolls had the equivalent to adrenaline – they probably did, and it was probably coursing through Vriska’s cerulean bloodstream at that very moment.

“Do you know  _ why _ this city is so well-run? Do you know why the Council here is so different from the New York one?”

We stopped walking. Terezi shook her head and I shrugged.

“This isn’t some goddamn utopia up here,” Vriska said, her eyes darting around. “There’s a reason that no one fucks around in the Council here like they did in New York… and that reason is Porrim Maryam.”

She motioned for us to keep walking, so we did. She seemed eager to go see June – and get the heck away from Porrim.

“Porrim wasn’t from here originally – I don’t know where she’d been but she came in here and the Council was fragmented just like in New York. Maybe not into the same shit yet, but getting there. Porrim decided that wasn’t going to work and started… negotiating.”

So she had either blackmailed or killed most of her competition. From the tone of the conversation, I strongly suspected the latter was more common.

“Pretty soon she was it.” Vriska snorted. “She’s fair and she’s committed to protecting the weak, but she’s also completely ruthless. The coppers here are all on board because the few that really stood up ended up mysteriously disappeared. She killed off the highbloods that were running the Council here without a second thought and declared the whole hemospectrum a thing of the past.”

I had wondered about that myself, given how big of a crud-bucket it had turned out to be in New York. So the solution here hadn’t necessarily been dissimilar, just… timed differently.

Vriska had gone quiet and I wasn’t planning to push for more information. We kept walking, and I kept reevaluating my opinion of the Boston Council in general, and Porrim Maryam in particular.


	3. A Reunion

**South Boston, Boston**

We passed the rest of the walk into South Boston without saying much. I was still turning what Vriska had said about Porrim and the Council over in my mind. My experiences in New York had soured me more than a little to that kind of scene, and I wasn’t keen to see the whole bloody spectacle repeat itself here.

Vriska made it sound like it was different in Boston, somehow – I wasn’t so sure I believed her.

The further we walked from the North End, the more the city changed. The buildings grew older, dirtier, and less well-maintained. The smell of festering garbage mixed in with the odor of ocean decay wafting in from the harbor, creating a distinctly unpleasant mixture – Terezi had decided to hold the corner of her suit jacket over her nose only a few blocks inside of South Boston proper.

The people, too, had a shabbier look about them as we passed them on the street. Trolls and humans of various sorts were mingled together, although they all seemed to be dressed in a relatively plain, simple style. Patches and worn clothing indicated that these were not folks as well-off as the ones that lived in the northern part of the city. They all seemed to be constantly in motion, rushing to make the next shift or get back home again.

Maybe an hour after we left the Social Club, we finally arrived at St. Mary’s Church in South Boston. It was, and I say this in the most charitable sense of the phrase, a trash heap. What might’ve once been an interesting example of neo-gothic revival architecture was falling into disrepair. Windows were broken out and someone had scrawled on the sign near the front of the church so it read “St. Mary _ am _ ’s” which felt darkly appropriate, given what I’d just learned about Porrim Maryam’s role in the takeover of this city.

Out in front of the church building was a crowd of the locals, all milling around a series of tables that were set up. On the tables were a series of pots and boxes, and it looked like everyone was lining up to get soup and bread before filing off to another set of tables with chairs around them.

Several people were serving the soup, but one in particular stood out – a woman with raven-black hair pulled back into a simple pony-tail. She was wearing a long blue dress and her bespectacled face lit up as she bustled back and forth, helping to fill bowls and hand out loaves of bread.

One look over at Vriska’s flushed cheeks confirmed my first impressions – this was the fabled June Egbert.

“Vriska!” June called as she left her station behind the table and ran over to envelop Vriska in a hug. “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow!” She paused to kiss Vriska, who happily leaned into the affectionate gesture.

I cleared my throat and June pulled back, looking over at Terezi and me.

“Oh!” She called out, smiling. “Your friends!”

Before I fully knew what was happening, I was caught up in a warm hug that then seamlessly moved on to Terezi before rolling back to Vriska, who was being held in June’s arms as she grinned at us. This woman had an energy that was going to be impossible to pin down!

“Yeah,” Vriska said, seemingly having difficulty finding the words. “This is Jane Crocker and Terezi Pyrope. They’re private eyes from New York – the ones I told you about.”

June’s face lit with recognition and I was hit with yet another hug. “OH! Thank you so, so much! Vriska told me about how you helped settle things in New York! I was so worried that she’d gotten caught up in all of that!”

This seemed like an odd response, given everything that had happened. I pulled Vriska aside real quick – had to ask her something before it slipped my mind, you know?

“Vriska,” I said in a low whisper, “how much of what happened does she know about? What exactly did you  _ tell _ her?”

You know… on account of the blackmail, and the extortion. And all of the murder.

Vriska shook her head slightly. “She knows that I owed the New York Council a favor of some kind and she thinks you were able to find me an out right before everything collapsed down there.”

Okay, so June didn’t know about the way her lover had brutally murdered the head of a major organized crime family for trying to blackmail June using her past. Good to know – important to keep those kinds of facts straight.

I smiled gamely, patted Vriska on the shoulder, and turned back to June.

“Of course, doll,” I said, not breaking my smile. “I’m just glad we could help your main squeeze out.”

June blushed at that and muttered something I couldn’t hear, then looked over at Vriska.

“What’re you doing here, darling?” June looked worried for a minute – the grin she had broke ever-so-slightly. Maybe she was naive enough not to know fully what Vriska had been involved with in the past, but she at least had a sense.

Vriska had clearly thought this through, at least a little bit. “They’re here to check up on some rumors around town – some rumors the Council heard about suspicious folks poking around here and asking questions – just to make sure you’re safe and everything’s fine.”

My mind quickly jumped back to the strange letter Vriska had showed us – the one addressed directly to June and more full of weird pseudo-religious talk than a pierside bar was full of drunk sailors at one in the morning. I got that Vriska was trying to protect June here, but I couldn’t help but feel like this was going to very quickly spiral out of her control – out of anyone’s control, really.

But June seemed satisfied with this answer, at least for the time being. Her smile returned and she looked at me, then Terezi, then me again, as if expecting us to say something. We kind of stood there awkwardly for a moment before I felt Terezi’s elbow in my ribs and decided to break the silence.

“Just here to check the facts, ma’am,” I said, drawing myself up and trying to look more professional than I felt. “Probably nothing here to be worried about, but we know important this kind of work is to the community and the last thing we want is problems.”

It was one-hundred-percent, grade-A horse manure. I had no idea how important any of this was to Porrim and the Council (if those were even two separate entities at this point), and I had no clue as to the lay of the land. I was mostly just guessing that June’s apparently boundless optimism would overcome whatever suspicions she might have.

“Oh, thank goodness,” June said. Well, I had guessed correctly.

June seemed to think for a moment, her brow creasing minutely. “I guess I haven’t really noticed anything out of the ordinary. Most of the people here live here and just don’t have the money for food. The Council helps provide food and funds shelters in the area. It might not look like much, but they have a roof over their heads and hot food in their bellies.”

While we were talking, June moved us slowly back over toward the line and resumed what she’d been doing without breaking stride. I watched as she grabbed a ladle and began handing out soup to the folks that were lined up.

As she worked, June kept talking. “Ms. Maryam came down here a few times, even – just to make sure everything was okay. She’s so sweet and she cares so much about the people living here. Not just the Alternians either – she cares about all the poor people here.”

Vriska tugged on my shoulder and Terezi and I slid over to one side. Vriska’s voice dropped to a whisper as she spoke to us.

“By the time June got here with me, Porrim had already taken out basically all her competition. This doesn’t feel like a Council thing, you know?”

I’d seen the letter and the telegram that were addressed to June, so I thought that I kind of did, but I also didn’t want to rule anything out. There was always the offside possibility that this was some kind of power move that was trying to angle in through a soft spot in Porrim’s heart by tacking at her fondness for the community – if she even had things like fondness and soft spots to begin with.

Out of the side of my eye, I saw Terezi glance up quickly, her face a sudden mask of surprise.

“Wait, what did he just say?” She didn’t explain further, but moved over toward the line where June had finished serving the last of the assembled people. “Where did he go?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but she looked upset. I put out a hand.

“Terezi? What’s going on?” I asked, feeling like something was about to drop.

She was turning her head, training her ears to scan the crowd of people that were sitting and standing around eating. She sniffed the air, frowning deeply. After a few seconds, she turned to June.

“That last man you served – the funny-smelling human – do you know who he is?” Terezi asked.

June shook her head. “I don’t know him, he’s not a regular, but that doesn’t matter. He was polite and told me thank you… even if it was in an odd way.”

“Did it mean anything to you, what he called you?” Terezi had moved closer to June and her face showed lines of concern. I was getting lost here, and I could tell from her face that Vriska was too.

“No… but…” June stammered off into silence. “I don’t understand. Is something wrong?”

Terezi turned to me and leaned in, speaking low enough that the others couldn’t hear. “That man called her the  _ Heir of Breath _ – anything sound familiar about that one?”

And it did – I was getting that sinking feeling in my gut when everything starts to unravel. When the case becomes more than it seems. I had a feeling Terezi was in the exact same place.

Terezi looked over at Vriska. “Look, Jane and I need to check out a couple leads. I think we’re going to be okay. You help June finish up here and then head straight home.” Her tone didn’t leave room for argument.

Vriska and June both agreed and stayed back to help clean up the soup line while Terezi and I walked back the way we’d come. Once we were safely out of hearing range, Terezi leaned in and spoke to me again.

“I don’t like this, but we need to speak to Porrim again and we need to do it alone.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I figured she was right.

* * *

**North End, Boston**

We walked fast, and the trip back to the North End took significantly less time than it had taken to get down there. Getting back to the Social Club wasn’t difficult, and we walked inside like we were old regulars. Better to not draw attention to how unfamiliar we were with this whole environment.

Terezi stopped me before we walked in. “Let me handle this. I know Vriska’s afraid of Porrim – and I think she has reason to be – but I think  _ Porrim _ is afraid of something else. I’d like to know what.”

In we went – through the doors, past the bar, to the locked door in the back. The Rude Troll Gal, after a moment of contemplation, decided to let us in again. She took our guns and once again we were directed up the stairs and to the room that Porrim Maryam used as her office.

Porrim was seated in the center of the room at her large, wooden desk and the mysterious blonde-haired man was still standing in the corner. Porrim looked up as we entered.

“Oh? You came back – how can I help you two lovely ladies?”

Terezi glanced over at the man in the corner. “Can we possibly talk to you alone?”

The man started forward, but Porrim held up a long-nailed hand and shook her head. “It’s fine, Dirk – you can take a minute. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

With that, the man grunted and retreated back through a back door. Once the door had clicked shut and a moment had passed, Porrim spoke again.

“Yes? What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Do the phrases ‘ _ Heir of Breath’ _ or ‘ _ Order of the Creators’ _ mean anything to you?” Terezi didn’t bother to ease into it. Porrim paused and looked around the room, as if checking to see if anyone was watching her.

When she answered, her voice was quieter and sounded… different. “What the hell did you just ask me?”

Terezi’s nose was twitching. “I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you know that Vriska asked us here for something specific beyond whatever bullshit she’s already told you, but you’re not concerned since you’ve figured out it doesn’t directly affect you. Well, you’re right about that, but you also know this town better than anyone and I need to know if those things ring a bell.”

Porrim was leaning towards us and I could’ve sworn I saw sweat forming on her brow. “Where did you hear this?”

“A man downtown said it to June,” Terezi said, bluntly. “And we saw the name of the Order of the Creators in a letter, along with some symbols… a letter A and a circle and some weird sideways-C thing I didn’t recognize.”

“I don’t know what all that is,” Porrim responded, “but I’d suggest you hop on the next train back to New York City and forget all about this. Make whatever excuses you need to in order to feel okay about your decision, but get the hell out and do it now.”

Even I could tell that this line of questioning wasn’t going anywhere else. Terezi thanked Porrim for her time, received a simple grunt of acknowledgement in return, and we were back out on the street before we could fully process what was happening.

Terezi pulled me in close. “She was lying… or… I guess, hiding something from us. Trying really hard not to say anything so she wasn’t technically lying. Something has her scared. But…”

Terezi paused and waggled her nose around, as if she were trying to place something specific. “Something about the smell… she was scared, but it didn’t smell  _ fresh _ . I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I think this situation is something Ms. Maryam up there is already familiar with.” Terezi sighed heavily.

“God this is so damn frustrating!” She clenched her fists against her thigh to emphasize just how frustrating it was.

Gently, I took one of her hands and brought it up, kissing her knuckles softly. “Listen, Vriska booked us a room in a hotel… let’s go there and take some time to relax – think this all over. Vriska’s with June, so they’ll be fine. Let’s go over what we know and figure out where we need to go next.”

Squeezing my hand, Terezi smiled. “Yeah… okay… let’s do that.”


	4. Scratches in the Dark

**Near the City Common, Boston**

The Ritz was a far cry from the urine-soaked hellholes I was more typically accustomed to when working cases. It sat near the Boston Common, a stretch of green right in the middle of the city where farmers had once brought their cows in to graze. Not much of that now – instead, you saw a lot of couples out for walks and folks generally enjoying the last traces of the New England summer.

It was a pricey joint, to be sure, but since Vriska was footing the bill to put us up there, I wasn’t complaining. Terezi and I had brought bags but packed pretty light, and everything had already been delivered from the train station to the hotel.

So we found ourselves sitting in a room several floors up with a decent view of the city. It was nice. Terezi immediately ran over and jumped on the bed, sitting and bouncing with a huge grin. I took a seat in the chair by the window and looked out to the city. I was in a pondering mood – I needed to focus and try to figure this case out.

Except… did we even  _ have _ a case to work on? Vriska had asked us here because she was worried about the weird letters addressed to June, and that was certainly worrying. So was the stranger addressing her using the same language from the letter. And the way Porrim responded was certainly suspicious. Everything was adding up to be something fishy, that was for gosh-darn sure.

But what the heck did we actually have to go on? As much as suspicious, evasive behavior was raising all kinds of red flags for me, it didn’t do much to help paint a clear picture of what was happening.

I always say that a crime scene tells a story. Well, a case does too – it’s just a longer, more complicated story. And so far I felt like I had bits and pieces – a paragraph here and a sentence there. Nothing much to go on. And no actual crime scene either, ironically.

This is the part where, in the past, I would’ve lit up a smoke and stared out the window. Maybe downed some bourbon. But I’d stopped with the smokes on account of Terezi’s sense of smell, and I promised myself I was cutting back on the booze. So my normal nervous habits were unavailable and I resorted to drumming my fingers on the arms of the chair and tapping my foot.

“What’s on your mind?” Terezi’s voice called from the bed. I looked up from my thoughts without turning.

“Just… can’t make this one make sense yet. Any thoughts?”

“No,” she said, and took a second. “Figure you’re already past the point of wondering about how damn  _ weird _ everything is and around the point where you realize we don’t know near enough about this whole thing to make hide-nor-shit of it.”

I was sure  _ hide-nor-shit _ wasn’t the correct human phrase, but I also felt like Terezi was doing that on purpose. She had a talent for idioms.

“That’s about right,” I said, glaring at the window. “You knew Porrim was hiding something – any other insights?”

Terezi laughed. “Oh, I wish. I hate to leave Vriska and June twisting out in the wind like this, but we’re way out on a limb here. Porrim’s got some big goddamn secrets though, I would say. Or she’s scared shitless of something. Hard to tell and I don’t think it’d be a swell idea to ask her again.”

No, I didn’t suppose it would be. “Heck,” I said, to no one in particular.

I was glaring out the window again. Letting those thoughts pile up and spill over inside me. Of course it wasn’t helpful – the dang case was too loose right now to make hide-nor- _ hair _ of anything. Too many weird little bits – too much uncertainty.

I groaned and put my head back against the chair, closing my eyes.

“God dang,” I said, massaging my closed eyes with a hand. “I just want to forget about this stupid case for five dang minutes.”

The room went silent and I could hear Terezi kind of moving around on the bed but not saying anything. The chair was comfortable and I didn’t want to get up.

“Jane,” Terezi’s voice called from the bed. “Why don’t you come lie down over here? It’s probably more comfortable than the chair.”

“No… ‘s good here…” I muttered, half to Terezi and half to myself. I leaned back.

“Okay… I can work with that.” More noise on the bed, a light step down, then more quiet.

“What do you think?” Terezi’s voice, directly in front of me! I jumped in the chair and my eyes shot open.

“Holy heck, Rezi, I…” My voice died mid-sentence and I suddenly had a very important clue as to what all the noise on the bed had been about.

Terezi was completely naked, with her arms crossed in front of her, grinning wildly. She gestured down at the chair I was sitting in.

“May I, Miss Crocker?”

I nodded, dumbfounded, and she practically leaped into my lap with a laugh. She had the top few buttons on my shirt undone in no time and had already pressed her lips firmly up against my neck. I think I gasped – I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Terezi… what…”

“Shh… taking your mind off of things. If you want me to, of course…”

Surprisingly I hadn’t gotten much smoother in the whole love department since we’d first started seeing each other three years ago. So yes, I definitely wanted her to, but the sentiment came out more as  _ Ermm _ than anything else.

I ran my hands over her body – something I’d become intimately familiar with in the past few years. All the lines and scars and blemishes and marks were things I’d come to know and love just as much as the woman who held them.

Terezi had my shirt off completely and I feel that this is a good time to point out that I hadn’t gotten any more comfortable with the idea of voyeurs viewing this particular part of my love-life. So I’ll leave it here and you will, as always, have to resort to your undoubtedly-vivid imagination.

Terezi leaned in and kissed me full on the lips, holding onto my hair and pulled me in towards her. I was getting hot all over and as soon as she pulled back, I let out a small moan and reached down.

Really though, the rest you’ll have to fill in on your own. I’m not the kind of gal to kiss and tell!

The telling part, that is. The kissing part I am most definitely on board with!

* * *

To my credit – maybe to  _ our _ credit – we did eventually end up on the bed. Completely naked, with the clothing basically thrown everywhere, but we were on the bed. We had an enjoyable enough time there, and that lasted a while, and then we both ended up just kind of draped over each other, enjoying each other’s company and not saying much.

At some point I drifted off to sleep. Terezi was tangled up with me and she was warm and soft and I was so comfortable that I didn’t even realize when I was under. I don’t think I was completely asleep, because I was still vaguely aware that it was getting darker out. I would drift in, enjoy the feeling of Terezi’s skin against mine, and then drift out again into a surprisingly pleasant sleep.

In and out – back and forth. Drifting.

There was a noise. A kind of… scratching sound. I jumped up, waking Terezi in the process. She heard the noise immediately… of course she did.

“Someone’s outside the room,” she said. Getting up, she gathered the sheet around her in a makeshift cloak and grabbed her Colt from the nightstand. Terezi walked to the door, slowly opened it, and peeked out into the hallway.

She closed the door again, shaking her head. “No one there.”

I let out the breath I realized I’d been holding in and got down from the bed to gather my underwear up. Putting my delicates back on, I groaned.

“Hell of a way to ruin the mood,” Terezi said, as if she was reading my thoughts. I grunted my assent and plopped back down on the bed. Terezi followed, putting her pistol on the nightstand again and draping herself and the sheet over me.

Okay, so that was a decent enough way to pass the time.

Often in fiction there’s a narrative device where something will happen at a particularly opportune time to advance the plot. I would pretend that it happened just then, but the truth was we spent another twenty minutes holding each other under the sheets before the phone rang.

I reached over and picked the received up from the table at the side of the bed where it sat.

“Hello?”

“Jane? Oh thank God you’re there.” It was Vriska’s voice. She sounded scared. I motioned for Terezi to come closer so she could hear the conversation as well.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Her breathing on the other end sounded too harsh – something had happened.

“Someone was inside our house!” As soon as I heard her say it, Terezi raised her eyebrows and I felt all kinds of alarms going off in my mind. Sure, Terezi hadn’t seen anyone in the hallway, but how many places did this hotel have to duck off into that we didn’t even know about?

“Are you gals okay?” I asked, my voice trembling at least a little bit.

“Yeah… we’re fine. Thought I heard something downstairs so I grabbed my shotgun and took a look around – swear I heard someone running off.”

That definitely sounded bad.

“Do you need us over there?” It was all I could think of to say.

“No,” Vriska responded quickly. “Don’t do that. Stay where you are. I own a place up in Gloucester – a blue house at the end of the road north of John Hammond’s ridiculous castle. It’s right at the end of the road so you can’t miss it – ask one of the locals where the stupid castle is. I’m going to take the car and June and I are gonna drive up there right now.”

“Vriska, it’s the middle of the night…”

“You think I don’t know that? This is getting too weird and I don’t feel like we’re safe here. I’m going up north.”

I sighed. “Okay, that’s fine. Terezi and I have to chase down a couple leads in the city first, but we’ll meet you up there tomorrow or the day after. We’ll have to hire a car.”

Vriska gave me the name of a car service that had a tab under her name and promised she’d pay whatever fees were involved, then hung up to go pack. I was left sitting next to Terezi, both of us still mostly undressed but the feeling in the room decidedly different.

“We have leads to chase down?” Terezi asked, cocking her head. “That’s news to me.”

I smiled. “I know… I feel like we should spend some time tomorrow combing through South Boston… see if anything shakes loose. I know it’s a long shot but… dang if we haven't already run through all our other options.”

Terezi frowned, but I could tell from the way her jaw squared up that she had already made her decision between sitting around with Vriska and waiting for something to happen and taking to the beat and rattling a few cages.

We’d grab what sleep we could – with the door locked and bolted tight – and see what we could find in the morning.


	5. Breadcrumbs

**South Boston, Boston**

There’s this myth of the ace private eye – the detective who knows everything and figures out the case before anyone else can even get a handle on what’s going on. I’m telling you right now that that’s a load of absolute horse-goober.

There are times when you’re working a case and you get completely lost, or so turned-around you can’t figure out which way is up. When I started as a cop, I figured that finding clues meant you were closer to figuring out the truth and catching the crooks. Then I realized that the clues were often leading you around in a web and the crooks and the cops were often the same dang people.

And the one thing I found that worked above all else – when you get completely lost in a case, just pick a point and start walking until you hit a wall.

It was in that spirit that Terezi and I went back to South Boston, found the church where June had been volunteering, and literally started walking.

My reasoning was simple – the person who had spoken to June was likely local. There was no reason to come up to her otherwise when another vaguely-sinister letter or telegram would do. They were probably familiar with her work at the church, since Porrim had implied that this was a regular kind of gig. They may have even come by previously, but whether or not that was the case there was a chance that someone in the local community might key in on the name  _ Order of the Creators _ and give us another thread to pull on.

In real life, clues didn’t generally come with big, neon signs attached. They were tiny bits and pieces – breadcrumbs you found along the way.

We started at the church and we walked further into the neighborhood. I had my eyes out for centers of activity - bars and social clubs – the kinds of places where people who knew about shady goings-on might be collecting to blow off some steam.

“Oh shit,” Terezi was grabbing my shoulder. “I smell him!”

She didn’t say  _ who _ she meant, but it was pretty obvious from context. Our mystery man with the weird smell.

I scanned the street, looking to see. And sure enough, there was our stinky human, walking away from us with his back turned.

I said that clues aren’t always big things, but sometimes life just drops a big one right into your lap. When that happens, the trick is to make sure you keep running with it. I put my arm around Terezi’s waist and pulled her forward.

“We’ve gotta keep up with him – see where he goes!” I could hear the excitement in my own voice. We had a lead now – and it felt like a big one.

One thing both Terezi and I were good at was following folks without them realizing it, but this fella didn’t seem like he much cared who might be tailing him. He walked right along with his hands in his pockets and his head down, never once looking back over his shoulder. So we just strolled right along, enjoying the morning sun (as much as we could, given the strange events of the last night) and keeping an eye on the stranger.

He led us on a couple of turns before finally moving north up toward the piers. Before he could get there, our mysterious stranger ducked inside of a building that looked like a pub of some kind but was completely devoid of a sign that gave its name.

We stood back for a half hour and waited but the stranger didn’t come back out of the building. Finally, Terezi shook her head.

“I think he might’ve gone out the back. It’s hard to tell with the smell coming off the ocean, but I don’t think he’s in there anymore.”

I stared hard at that place he’d vanished into, as if looking long enough would make more information pop out. The place was covered with various flyers, most of them yellowing and curling up. If this was indeed a pub or bar, it wasn’t a very active one.

Without taking a second to think on it any longer, I walked up to the wall of decaying advertisements and pamphlets. Our mysterious wanderer was likely gone, and even if he saw us it’s not like he would recognize who were were anyway. My eyes scanned down the various pieces of detritus stuck to the walls, nothing really jumping out at me.

Α◌Ω

My eyes stopped and my heart-rate shot up as soon as I saw it. It was at the top of a flyer surrounded by images of two stylized eyes. I pulled the paper off the wall and looked it over, muttering aloud for Terezi’s benefit as I read it.

Usher in a new era!   
Unlock the hidden potential within yourself!   
Awaken the Inner Eye!   
  
Praise the Creator!   
Praise the Beast!

It looked as if there had once been more to the paper, but it was now torn off at the bottom. I carefully folded the flyer up and stuck it into a pocket in my suit jacket.

“Okay, what the hell was that?” Terezi asked. I had no idea what to say.

* * *

I wasn’t entirely sure about going back to the Ritz, but we already had the room and the car service wouldn’t be able to take us up to Gloucester until the next morning. So we headed back to the hotel, got a different room, and made sure that the door was locked and bolted before we let ourselves start to relax.

Neither of us was really in the mood for much of anything, so we ended up half-dressed in the bed, holding onto each other and listening to the bustle of the city outside die down as night came creeping up on us.

A couple times, Terezi swore she heard someone padding around in the hallway outside, but it could’ve easily been one of the other guests returning to their rooms or one of the staff making rounds. I think we were just keyed up after Vriska’s call the night before.

Terezi actually fell asleep first, her head against my side. I followed soon after.

* * *

The rail line stretched out and down – I could see it extending through the darkness. It seemed to go on forever. As far as I knew, the rail line had always been there. I had always been there.

At the end of the line there is a tunnel.

At the end of the line, there was a tunnel. I didn’t know how I knew this, but I knew it was the uncanny certainty that I knew my own name…

...my name…

Your name doesn’t matter here. Only what you are.

I wondered what I was – what was meant by that. But also, I didn’t care what I was. I didn’t care because caring about it was exhausting, and it was easier to simply drift.

The tunnel will take you where you need to go.

I wondered for a second what that meant, but I didn’t care about it either. I walked along the rail line, slowly ticking off the distance as the ties slid by under my feet.

The tunnel would take me where I needed to go. It loomed wide in front of me – I could hear whispering from inside.

On the horizon, a hooded figure stood, shadowed against the overcast sky.

He is watching over you.

I couldn’t make out any detail beyond the silhouette… and I didn’t care about that either. I just wanted to go into the tunnel.  _ Needed _ to go into the tunnel.

We are watching over you.

The figures hunched around the entrance to the tunnel and I couldn’t make out their faces. I could see horns and not-horns – trolls and humans, all huddled together. They said nothing – did nothing. They only sat and looked down at the ground.

Above me, I could feel something. Some kind of looming presence darkening the sky. It was immense and my mind struggled to grasp what it was witnessing – the words to describe it failed.

I am watching you, Jane Crocker.

* * *

I was awake and moving so fast I almost fell out of the bed. I ended up catching myself and half-landing on top of Terezi. That woke her up and she was out from under me and reaching for the Colt on the nightstand before I could blink. She was scanning the room, listening and smelling.

“Wait! Terezi!” I was trying to get my own breathing under control. “It was just a nightmare!”

Terezi turned toward me and lowered the pistol, her face breaking into a grin.

“Oh shit,” she said. “You really had me…”

There was a sound from near the door – a scratching, then a thump, then the sound of feet moving away. Terezi brought the pistol up again and was moving toward the door before I could react. I followed as quickly as I could, grabbing my own revolver from the nightstand.

We stood next to the door and Terezi nodded to me – I reached out, undid the locks, and threw the door wide. Terezi moved through the door with her Colt up –

Of course, there was no one in the hallway. Terezi sword under her breath and turned to come back inside.

I couldn’t stop staring at the door I’d just opened. Terezi smelled the same thing I was seeing and I saw her face fall.

Scrawled on the door in what appeared to be nearly-fresh blue blood was written a single phrase.

WE ARE WATCHING YOU!

And below was written the now-familiar set of sigils:

Α◌Ω

I was shaking – I could barely hold on to myself. It felt like I needed to cry and scream at the same time, and my head felt like it was spinning. I gasped, stumbled sideways, and felt Terezi catch me. She helped me back into the room and to the bed, slamming the door shut behind us.

“Terezi… help.” That was about all I could manage in that moment. Terezi sat me back and climbed onto the bed next to me, gathering me up in her arms.

“It’s like the dream,” I said, realizing even as I said it that this would mean essentially nothing. “It’s happening just like the dream.”

I know in hindsight that this wasn’t strictly true, but in that moment it felt so  _ real _ that it was all I could think of. I was trying desperately not to start losing it, and Terezi held me tightly.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.”

Whatever she said, it was very much  _ not _ okay. I didn’t know which troll’s blood was decorating our door, but none of this was okay.

I shook my head. “We need to get to Vriska and June. First thing when the dang sun rises!”

She didn’t argue – she knew as well as I did that this was an escalation. We’d both seen how far these kinds of things could go, and neither of us wanted to be in the middle of another gangland shooting war.


	6. North of the Vale

**Gloucester, Massachusetts**

Hammond Castle loomed wide as we passed it in the car, then dropped off into the background like an ostentatious monument as we peeled away to drive up to Dolliver Neck where Vriska had her house. Leaving Boston, it had been overcast, but the morning had broken into what promised to be a gorgeous day of clear skies.

Of course, I couldn’t stop thinking about the dream from the night before or the writing scrawled on our door. We’d been able to clean that up before anyone noticed, thank God, but whoever had left that little message now occupied a decent chunk of my thoughts. Not that I particularly needed an excuse to wax melancholy and introspective – that was pretty much standard-issue when you licensed as a private eye – but the  _ clarity _ of the dream itself was picking at me.

Blood without a body. Cryptic messages basically everywhere. We had clues without a darned case to work them into!

My basic thoughts on the matter were I was taking this case to heart a bit much – all the elements were there. The weird language of the letters – the references to some unspoken force out there. All this religious talk about creators and beasts and all that other guff. I told Terezi about the dream and she agreed with me – everything was getting to me in a way that felt distinctly  _ personal _ .

But I also felt like there was something deeply and unspeakably  _ wrong _ here. I couldn’t tell you why I felt this way, but it was something I couldn’t shake if my life depended on it. I told Terezi this too and she had shrugged and given me the  _ what are you going to do  _ look and that was about the size of it. After all, what  _ could _ I do? We still weren’t any closer to really finding out what was going on. More weird hints that ultimately meant nothing.

But someone in Vriska’s house was something concrete – that was something I could really sink my teeth into. So the plan was to make sure Vriska and June were okay, then maybe check the locals out to make sure everything seemed safe. A couple of detectives from the big city were going to stick out like a pair of sore thumbs around here, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. I guessed Vriska was a little apart from the local community anyway, given her pedigree in organized crime.

The driver dropped us in front of the house and we were staring up at a Victorian house that looked eerily at home nestled in the trees by the ocean.

Of course Vriska had a house that looked like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story – this fit the facts so well it almost felt forced.

“This is a bit much.” Terezi was saying what I was thinking – it was a quality I loved about her. “She could’ve gone for a nice cottage but… I guess not.”

I sighed as we walked down the path through the front gardens toward the house itself. It was charming if, as Terezi said, a bit much. The gardens themselves were quite pleasant – heavy with the smell of box hedges and wild roses planted more for their scent than their decorative purpose. Terezi seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, grinning as she practically skipped down the pathway. It was nice to see after last night’s events. Amazing how readily our minds adapted to changing circumstances.

That feeling was still clawing at my mind. That feeling of  _ wrongness _ that wouldn’t go away.

It didn’t help matters much when we knocked on the door and a very haggard-looking Vriska Serket answered the door pointing a Winchester lever-action carbine at us. As soon as she recognized us, her face softened and she dropped the muzzle of the gun and stepped back from the doorway.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Kinda on edge… didn’t sleep much last night…”

For one brief, irrational moment I thought about asking if she’d dreamt of a tunnel at the end of a rail line. That felt like it would be in pretty poor taste, but we did still need to have a little chat about the message on our hotel room door.

Blood but no body.

I found myself unconsciously checking to see if Vriska was cut or injured – as far as I could tell she was not. Not that she was the only troll in the world with blue blood, but my mind was jumping to all kinds of weird conclusions lately.

Vriska ushered Terezi and me into a front room that was done up as a study. It was lined with various books and had a large desk in it – my worn-out brain made a sudden leap to the office of Jacob Harley three years ago. Different story, different time, different place. But the echoes were still there, and that was enough to shake me a little.

There was a little corner with a set of four chairs and I took a seat, looking up at Vriska.

“Get June in here – we need to have a chat.” I used my  _ I’m not asking _ voice and Vriska narrowed her eyes at that – but she nodded and went to go find June.

Terezi sat down in the chair next to me and reached a hand out – I took it, grateful.

“Hey, Terezi?”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t ask before but… did  _ you _ have any… weird dreams last night?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Slept okay until you were jumping over me on your way out of the bed.”

I smiled, sheepishly and my face flushed. “Again, I’m sorry about that…”

She grinned at me and squeezed my hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I love you.”

I blushed – still wasn’t used to hearing this gal talk like that, even after three years.

“I love you too.”

We sat like that for a couple minutes more before Vriska returned with June. June was wearing a shirt and trousers today instead of a dress, and she looked like she hadn’t been sleeping all that well either. She and Vriska took their places in the chairs across from us.

I didn’t want to waste any time. “So who wants to scare you and why?”

Vriska blinked and June looked back and forth between Vriska and me like she was real confused at this.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What do you mean?”

I elaborated – “Everything that’s been happening has been real dramatic and spooky, but no one has made any moves to actually  _ do _ anything. This isn’t a novel – if they wanted to try to kill you they would’ve just done the same thing the New York Council did to me three years ago and emptied a couple drums of lead into the store I was in at the time.”

I saw June’s eyes go wide and her mouth opened and shut like she was still trying to process what she just heard.

“Vris?” She said, her voice quaking. “What’s she talking about? Were people trying to kill you too?”

Oh I felt bad for this gal – she was so sweet and I knew Vriska had tried to soften what had happened in New York for her. She didn’t sound mad that Vriska hadn’t told her everything – she sounded worried that the gal she was sweet on had possibly been in danger. I could see the tears starting in the corners of her eyes.

Vriska smiled and put a hand on her leg. “It’s fine… I wasn’t there when that happened. I was fine!”

I remembered a time when a certain Aradia Megido had been about to put a couple extra holes in a certain Vriska Serket’s head… and I thought that maybe “I was fine” was a bit of an exaggeration. I wasn’t going to push the issue though – that was for the lovely couple to discuss on their own time.

“Okay, let’s keep things straight here,” I said. “Someone wants to scare you. They’re poking and prodding around – leaving weird messages and coming into your home and making noise. I think they’re trying to do the same thing to us.”

I explained the writing in blood on our hotel door and I saw June’s face go pale. She looked like she was going to throw up.

“Why?” She stammered it out with a gasp. “Why would anyone do something like that?”

Another flash back to three years ago in my mind – a dame’s body lying in a bathtub because some waste of skin had decided killing her would make his life easier. I felt for June – I really did. If I could go back to that innocent way of seeing things I would do it in a heartbeat.

I shook my head and looked at June. “My guess is that one of you two is close to something that threatens someone’s business. Since I don’t think there’s much competition in the Christian charity business, I would wager it’s someone looking to cut in on something Council related who figures they can spook Vriska enough away from whatever it is to make their move.”

I shrugged, then continued. “The fact that they haven’t tried to get rough means they’re probably just looking for a bit of an opening. Some kind of hustle they want to run on Porrim, maybe.”

It was a good hunch, but it didn’t feel right to me. Not only was messing with Porrim Maryam an amazingly bad idea, this whole dramatic production felt like too much work for something as simple as trying to edge in on Council business.

Vriska groaned and bent over, her head in her hands. “This is so fucking  _ stupid _ ! What is this? New York Council folks who’re holding a goddamn grudge?!”

And that felt a lot closer to the truth. Maybe all of Gamzee’s blackmail hadn’t been destroyed after all. Maybe there was still someone who knew about June and hated Vriska enough to want to make her suffer – to make both her and June suffer before whatever hammer they were holding finally dropped.

Porrim was probably connected enough to know if anyone had recently come in from New York – I made a mental note to ask her about this later. I was worried that the information would come at the price of a favor but at this point I was willing to risk it.

I looked over at Terezi and it looked like she might be having a very similar set of thoughts. Her face was lowered slightly and her eyebrows were knitted in contemplation.

“How often do you come out here?” Terezi asked. “Both of you.”

June spoke first. “I’m not here very often – my work in the city takes a lot of my time. But I do like to come here on weekends from time to time. Vriska and I drive up together.”

Vriska shrugged. “I don’t know – I usually only come here with June. Our place in Boston is more convenient.”

I had to hand it to Terezi, it was a good question. Their answer sounded like routine, and routine meant you could be tailed and found out. I had a feeling Vriska already knew this, at least a little bit, but wasn’t quite at the point of deciding to just flat-out run or try to go to Porrim and beg for some kind of protection. My sense was that it was something that Vriska’s pride would make almost impossible – her asking me for help in New York those three years ago had only come out of utter desperation.

“Well, if there’s anyone suspicious around, the locals would know, right?” Terezi again.

Vriska looked up from her hands. “Probably. Closest town is a little fishing village called Seaward Vale just to the south of the Hammond place. It’s not much, but there’s a general store and a bar, plus a little hotel that mostly caters to out-of-towners on their way up north. For some reason not a lot of the seasonal folks like it there – I think the locals creep them out a bit.”

As much as the idea of ignoring the whole mess and sitting around chatting with these three lovely gals for a while, I knew we were going to have to go to town eventually. Might as well get it over with.

* * *

**Seaward Vale, Massachusetts**

The trip down the coast was pleasant and short – Vriska had lent us a ‘33 Buick Roadster that made short work of the winding road and we were entering the tiny town of Seaward Vale before I knew it.

Vriska’s description of “not much” was, if anything, severely over-selling the town. There was a little harbor with a handful of docks where the boats would return after their day’s work was done. Houses clustered down a couple of main streets, and a general store and gas station hovered around the outskirts. The last and most notable features were a small hotel (really more of a large house) and a bar with “Fisher’s Rest” written in crude hand-painted lettering on the outside.

I wasn’t sure where to start, but a couple of trolls were standing by the side of the road leading to the bar, so I figured we’d pull over and maybe ask them a couple questions.

As soon as I pulled the car over, one of them looked at me, then turned and spit at the tires of Vriska’s car.

“What the hell do you want?” He growled the question at me while his friend stared at us. “Uppity highblood bitch on the hill too lazy to do her own shopping?”

The friend laughed and decided it was his turn to spit at the car as well. This was definitely going about as well as I’d hoped.

“Fraid not, fellas.” I smiled. “I’m actually a private eye on a case on behalf of Ms. Maryam down in Boston. Wondering if you fine gents could give me some advice.”

It wasn’t strictly a  _ true _ statement, but I figured that even up here Porrim’s name might carry some weight.

The troll glared and flared his nostrils. “We’ve got nothing against the Maryams, but we’ve got nothing to say to you. Best be getting on your way. And stay away from the Serkets.”

They didn’t say anything else – just turned and walked off toward the little harbor.

“What the hell was that about?” As usual, Terezi was saying what I was thinking. I shook my head.

“I have no idea. Let’s check the bar out and then get the heck out of this town.”

It bothered me that they had just assumed I was coming here on behalf of Vriska – assuming, of course, that there wasn’t another “uppity highblood bitch on the hill” which I decided was unlikely. Did they just assume that an outsider was likely to be working for her, or did they actually recognize the car? If they did – why? More questions, no answers. Around and around and around we went.

So we pulled up to the bar, parked the car, and got out to go ask some more questions I was sure would provide us with only vague and unhelpful answers.

“We gonna stick with the line about working for Porrim?” Terezi asked before we walked inside. I nodded.

“Sure… they don’t seem to like Vriska much around here so let’s go with… Porrim suspects Vriska’s been skimming and wants to know if she’s been receiving any unusual visitors lately or had anyone poking around the house.”

Terezi nodded. We pushed inside the bar.

The building was rough – basically a simple board-shack that had expanded out gradually. It was pleasant enough now in mid-September, but it would get pretty uncomfortable when the New England winters hit. The whole place was dimly lit with bare bulbs and had a simple bar set in the corner with stools around it. A scattering of tables and a single pool table with half the velvet torn off of it made up the entirety of the rest of the room’s furniture.

There were a couple patrons sitting around the tables playing cards, and a tall human man standing behind the bar cleaning glasses. He wore a button-up shirt and trousers and his black hair was slicked back over his head. The bartender saw us and glared.

“We don’t want you in here.” He spoke with a thick New England accent – “here” sounded more like “heeah.”

I smiled and walked closer. “My good sir, I’m here on behalf of Ms. Porrim Maryam – I believe you may have heard of her?”

The bartender was still glaring. “Sure, I’ve heard of her. No one gives a shit.” I half expected him to spit, but he somehow refrained from doing so.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” I tried to stay calm about it. “I just want to know if anyone has been spotted near the house up the way – the Serket residence – recently. You see, Ms. Serket in in the employ…”

“No one gives a shit about Ms. Serket here.” He cut me off abruptly. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave Ms. Serket to us and be the hell on off to Boston or wherever you came from. Tell Maryam to back off.”

He gave us a look that said that the conversation was definitely over, and the card-playing patrons were starting to sit up and take notice. Terezi gave me a little nudge so I nodded, thanked the bartender for his time, and turned to walk out.

As we were walking, Terezi stopped and I saw her raise her nose into the air.

“Weird… I smell it again…” She took a couple sniffs, walked over to a wall that was plastered with various flyers. It reminded me eerily of the building in Boston, except this one was covered mostly in local information that was almost certainly long out-of-date.

Terezi sniffed again, reached down, and grabbed a yellowed, tattered flyer that was half-hidden under another piece of paper tacked to the wall. She was careful to do it quickly and without the bartender or patrons noticing what she was doing. As soon as she had the paper, we walked back out of the bar into the afternoon sun.

As soon as we were back at the car, Terezi handed me the paper. I looked it over and a name jumped out at me.

_ LaLonde _ .

The Heretic LaLonde has forsaken you all!   
  
Do not trust her!   
Do not listen to her lies!   
  
The Creator denies her   
The Beast consumes her ****__  
  
Α◌Ω

The paper was worn – old. I turned it over in my hands, looking for more, but there was nothing.

“It smells like that person we tailed in Boston,” Terezi said. “Old… but the scent is still there. Not sure why it’s got LaLonde’s name on it – neither of them looks old enough to have been more than a young teenager when this was probably written.”

“Maybe it’s a different LaLonde…” I knew it was probably nonsense as soon as I said it. It wasn’t exactly a common New England name, and it felt like too much to be a coincidence.

I sighed – the world was feeling especially heavy today and it was starting to feel a little difficult to hold everything up. “We need to drive up to Gloucester – we’ve got a phone call to make.”

Terezi didn’t even ask why we couldn’t do it from Vriska’s place – that was one of the reasons I loved her so much. She was thinking the same thing I was – Vriska’s place wasn’t necessarily the safest, most secure place to start asking questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answers to.


	7. The Queen Lost Her Crown

**Gloucester, Massachusetts**

Lucky for us, there was a hotel in Gloucester that had a private phone line. I slipped an entire Washington to the fella behind the counter in exchange for a chance to use it without getting a room. When he was gone and I was sure we wouldn’t be disturbed, I dialed the operator and got a connection to Fairytale, the club in Harlem that Rose, Roxy, and Kanaya all ran together.

The line rang for a bit before a familiar-sounding voice answered on the other end.

“Hello, this is Fairytale.”

“Rose?” I asked into the receiver. “It’s Jane Crocker.”

There was a brief pause. “Jane? What in the world are you doing calling?”

“Is this a party line?” I had to know before I said anything else – too much uncertainty.

Another pause. “No, why? What’s this about?”

“I’m up in Gloucester with Terezi. We were in a town called Seaward Vale asking after some things and I saw an old flyer with the name LaLonde on it. Referred to them as a heretic…”

This time, the wait was longer. Almost a full minute – I could hear the received being moved around so I knew she was still on the other end.

“I’ve got to check something out. Can you give me an address where you’re staying?”

I told her Vriska’s address and she thanked me before hanging up. I groaned.

“That wasn’t very helpful,” I said. Terezi shook her head.

“She was scared,” Terezi said quietly. “I could hear it in her voice even over the phone. Something’s wrong.”

“No kidding – something’s wrong all the heck over this place.”

I decided that it would be a good idea to check in with Vriska, so I dialed the operator again and had her put me through to Vriska’s house. It was June who answered – she recognized my voice right away.

“Hello, Jane!” She sounded worried. “Vriska was wondering where you went. She got an important call… I’d better let her explain…”

There was a rustling and Vriska’s voice on the other end of the line. “Where the hell are you two? I need you to come back down here.”

“We were up in Gloucester – needed to check out a lead,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“I got a call from Dirk a little while ago – he says there’s something going on with Porrim and he needs someone to come help out as soon as possible.”

* * *

**North End, Boston**

In the end I had volunteered to take the Buick and drive back down to Boston while Terezi stayed back up in Gloucester with Vriska and June. She promised to try to dig up some more leads while she was up there – see if maybe she could kick a few things loose in Seaward Vale of thereabouts. It was about an hour back to the city from Vriska’s place, and “as soon as possible” sounded urgent enough that I went straight there, revolver tucked securely in its holster under my suit jacket.

I drove out of Gloucester as fast I could, passing the cutoff for the strange town of Seaward Vale a little bit faster than I strictly needed to. As I was whipping down the road, I almost clipped a hitchhiker wearing a long hooded cloak that covered their face entirely. Of course that was the kind of weird nonsense I was going to see – I had no time for any of it.

I didn’t like not having Terezi with me – I’d mostly worked alone before I met her, but ever since the whole stink in New York I’d come to really rely on her. I mean, aside from the fact that were were having a bit of a tumble whenever the mood struck… and aside from the fact that I was quite sure I was madly in love with her… aside from both those facts, she made a heck of a partner on a case. She could sense things I couldn’t even dream of… and despite being completely blind, was somehow an amazing shot with her Colt. She had a very direct way about her that worked well with my tendency to be a bit more reserved.

In short, I was missing her right then. But I also didn’t want to leave Vriska and Rose alone up in Gloucester. I was getting a bad feeling about that whole deal as of late, and I knew Terezi was as well. Neither of us wanted things to keep escalating.

When I finally pulled up the Alternian Social Clubi in Boston, I got the feeling I might not be able to stop that from happening anyway.

Several very rough-looking fellas were posted up outside the social club, visibly armed with shotguns and Tommy guns. I parked the Buick on the curb and walked up – the boys at the door saw me and moved aside to let me in. No searching – no checks for weapons. Something bad was happening inside.

As if on cue, as soon as the door closed behind me, I heard two gunshots ring out above me. I drew my revolver and started running, pushing to the back of the club and through the open security door. As soon as I rounded the stairs, I saw Dirk standing there with his hands out, motioning for me to put my piece away.

“Careful! She’s locked herself inside the office and won’t come out. She keeps firing the damn gun through the walls!”

I holstered my own gun and settled myself against the wall of the stairway.

“What the heck is she doing in there?” I asked.

Dirk frowned. “No idea. She was in her office all morning by herself and wouldn’t answer but I could hear crying – I called Vriska for help with her. She started shooting maybe… I dunno, fifteen minutes ago.”

There was another crack of gunfire from inside the office. I had no idea where the bullet had gone – I hoped it hadn’t ended up in someone’s apartment. I groaned to myself – what in the hell had I done to deserve this?

“Have you been able to talk to her?”

“No.” He said it while looking directly at the floor. “She won’t answer any of us.”

“Get downstairs and stay there with your goons until I come back. I’m going to try to talk to her alone.”

Dirk opened his mouth as if to respond, then apparently thought better of it. He was down the stairs without a word and I was alone with the woman shooting randomly through the walls.

Great. This was going great.

I walked up to the door and knocked, hunkering down in case she decided I would make a good target.

“Ms. Maryam? It’s Jane Crocker… we met a couple days ago.”

From inside the room, I heard a  _ laugh _ . Porrim was laughing and that made me deeply uncomfortable.

“Jane Crocker!” She called out from inside the room. It sounded strained. “Jane Crocker, PI! Private eye! You still looking for answers?”

The struck me as an odd question, but I wanted to humor her. You know… on account of the gun.

“Yes, Ms. Maryam. Still chasing down leads. You were very helpful earlier – was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

She laughed again – a high-pitched, unsettling sound. “Have you started dreaming yet?”

The words froze in my throat.

“Has he called out to you? Does he watch over you? Does he  _ see _ you?” Another laugh, trailing off.

I couldn’t hear anything except the muffled sound of Porrim moving around inside the office.

“Ms. Maryam!” I called out, hoping to keep her talking. Eventually I’d have to break in the door – unless she decided she wanted to suddenly change her mind about this whole thing and let me in.

No response. There was more shuffling around inside the office, the sound of a drawer slamming shut. A chair being knocked over… probably… Terezi could’ve told me exactly how it fell.

Another laugh, this time from further inside the office. Silence.

And then a scream. I braced myself and got ready to kick in the door. I was hoping that Dirk and boys hadn’t broken it down out of respect (or fear) and not because it was barricaded, because otherwise this was gonna hurt.

I kicked the door right next to the doorknob, driving all of my weight into the blow. The wood was flimsier than I expected and the latch splintered out of the frame as the door burst open.

The room was a mess – stuff strewn all over the place, desk cleared off, chair tossed. Porrim was in a corner, over by one of the windows. The gun was sitting on the desk next to a green telephone, so at least she wasn’t planning on shooting me. I ran over to the side of the desk and I could already see the blood staining the carpet, trailing over to where Porrim was on her knees by the window.

She had something in her hand – kept flicking her hand over.

I got up next to her and I could see that she had a razor blade held in her hand – her arms were a mass of slashes and the jade blood was oozing out onto the floor. I reached down and gingerly took the blade from her – she didn’t bother to resist.

“Hello, Jane.” She looked over at me and smiled, but her eyes looked vacant.

“You wait here!” I basically yelled it at her. I grabbed the razor blade and the gun from the table and ran back downstairs, around the bend. Dirk was sitting there with his goons.

“Do you have bandages?”

Dirk looked at me, confused. “Uh… no. What happened?”

“Shit! Just get me as many clean towels as you can from the bar. Hurry the heck up, Porrim’s hurt.”

One of the goons had run to the bar and came back with a handful of towels. With those in hand and Dirk in tow, I ran back upstairs and over to Porrim. She was still on her knees, still smiling vacantly.

I pressed the towels up against her bloody arms. Most of the slashes looked shallow – lucky break. Dirk came up to hold the towels in place, so I was able to clean up some of the blood near Porrim and take a quick look around for anything unusual.

The office looked pretty much the same as I remember. It didn’t look like anyone was there. I remembered the door off to the side – the one Dirk had disappeared into.

“Does that door back there lead down to the street?” I asked.

Dirk shook his head. “No, it’s just a couple back rooms we use as storage and offices.”

Porrim looked over at me and smiled again – I really wished she’d stop doing that.

“You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?” She said.

Dirk was pressing the makeshift bandages into her arms and trying to shush her at the same time.

“Saw what?” I asked.

“The tunnel, of course! The tunnel at the end of the line…” Her eyes rolled back and she swayed – she would’ve hit the floor if Dirk hadn’t been there to stop her from falling.

My heart was racing – there was no way she could’ve known. I hadn’t even told Terezi the details. There was no way Porrim could’ve known!

I looked right at Dirk. “Is there somewhere you can take her that’s safe? I have a feeling you don’t want the law involved.”

Dirk shook his head. “I don’t care about the law – most of the coppers around here owe Ms. Maryam anyway. I’m worried about the damn loony bin! If the wrong person sees this, that’s where she’s headed! You think Ms. Maryam doesn’t still have enemies here?”

I was quite sure she did. This seemed like a reasonable line of reasoning.

“So do you have somewhere to take her or not?”

Dirk sighed. “Yes… I can keep her at my place until she’s doing better. I’ve got some fellas I trust to help keep watch.”

Sure. Swell. That sounded swell. My heart was still tap-dancing inside my chest, so I just nodded at Dirk and he helped Porrim to her feet and carried her downstairs. I was left alone in the office, looking around at a mess of tossed decorations and light green blood.

I waited until I was sure they were out of the building before I started looking around the office. The desk itself was cleared, but on the wooden top, there were fresh scratches. I looked them over – saw what looked like a crude drawing of the a set of railroad tracks leading to a tunnel.

That tight feeling in my chest wasn’t going away. I scanned over the desk, already knowing what I was going to see.

Α◌Ω

Of course. I closed my eyes and walked away from the desk – the room was getting all fuzzy and I felt like I was going to fall over if I didn’t sit down. I walked to the windows, hoping to open one and get some fresh air…

There was something written on the floor, right beyond the edge of the carpet. It was written in blood – I had overlooked it in my rush to get Porrim help.

north of vale

I had no idea what it meant, but I felt like it was maybe not something that should be left there. I grabbed a discarded piece of bar towel that was left behind from treating Porrim and smudged out the writing until it was nothing but a green streak on the floor. Then I walked over to the window and opened it, letting the fresh air wash over me.

The phone was ringing.

I leaned my head out the window and groaned. My heart was still racing. There was no way that Porrim could’ve known about the dream. Maybe it was all a coincidence. That was what people who ended up dead in the woods somewhere always thought.

The phone was ringing.

I looked back inside, and yes – the office phone was ringing. I ran over and stopped in front of it. I was worried – I wasn’t sure –

Oh forget it. I picked the phone up.

“Maryam? Where’s Jane?” It was Terezi – she sounded panicked.

“No, this is Jane,” I said – my voice sounded like it was coming from a thousand miles away. “Porrim… Porrim had some kind of accident. That Dirk fella is watching over her.”

“Shit. Shit shit shit. List, Jane – you have to get back here right the hell now.”

“What’s wrong?” Further and further – felt like I was drifting.

“June’s gone. She went out for a walk and never came back. Vriska’s freaking the hell out and you need to be back here  _ now _ !”

Drifting.

Drifting.

I let the phone fall to the desk with a thump and stared out the window.

Somewhere, there was a rail line that led to a tunnel. A tunnel that led to… 


	8. Stalemate

**Gloucester, Massachusetts**

I drove back even faster than I’d come down, hoping to beat the twilight. I flew up the roads – through the sleepy pine-scented backwoods, then the wonderfully fresh sea air as I moved up toward the coast. The late afternoon sun would’ve, under any other circumstances, been a welcome pleasure. Instead, it just reminded me of the passage of time – the inevitable march towards uncertainty that I was trying desperately to escape.

Moving up through Seaward Vale I once again passed the hooded hitchhiker. I was reconsidering whether they were even a hitchhiker in the first place, given that they hadn’t moved a whole lot in the past three hours or so. I pushed the thought out of my mind – it wasn’t important. I was up past Seaward Vale and before I knew it, I was pulling up in front of Vriska’s home.

Terezi was already in front of the looming building, pacing back and forth. No doubt she’d heard the car coming a ways back – I was expected.

“Holy shit – thank god you’re here!” Terezi ran over and hugged me as soon as I stepped out onto the paved driveway.

“What happened? Where did June go before she disappeared?”

Terezi let go of me and stepped back. “She was out walking in the area and just… didn’t come back. Listen… we’ve gotta press Vriska a little bit more. She might not know much about this, but there’s  _ something _ she’s not coming out and saying. Shit – maybe not something she’s even aware of, but if we keep doing this bullshit dance we’re never getting anywhere.”

She was right – I already knew it.

We walked inside together, passing through the grand foyer and back into a small study off the main hallway. Vriska was sitting inside in a leather-upholstered armchair and gnawing nervously at her fingernails.

“Oh thank god,” she said it as soon as she saw me. Her face was a mask of hidden pain. “What the hell is happening? Where’s June?”

I stood across from her, looking down at where she sat in the armchair.

“Porrim Maryam was cutting her wrists and writing in her own blood.” Vriska’s eyes went wide. I didn’t add the part about the dreams – that sounded a little crazy even given the circumstances.

I kept going. “We keep seeing the same symbols everywhere – an A, a circle, and a weird kind of horseshoe thing. The folks down in town don’t seem to like you much… and now June’s gone missing. You’re not helping June by leaving out information right now!”

Vriska was looking down and her foot was tapping nervously.

“I don’t know who they are! I went into town a couple times and they seemed to already know me and wouldn’t talk to me! Eventually I just gave up – went into Gloucester if I needed to and kept to just me and June if she was with me. All the weird shit – the symbols and the Order of the Creators – none of that means anything to me!”

Terezi had been breathing deeply – she grunted. “Yeah… she’s telling the truth. I mean, at least as much as she knows it, anyway.”

I sighed – that was the best I was going to be able to hope for.

“Okay, what about Porrim? Is there anything you know that would connect her to any of this?”

Vriska shook her head. “I don’t know! Porrim might be a dangerous bitch but she’s also smart and she’s good for Boston. If you crossed her she’d fucking kill you, but if you didn’t she was perfectly fine.”

Vriska stopped, turned her head skyward, thought. “But… I’ve never seen her freaked out by anything. There’s more to that story.”

“You grew up in Boston?” I asked.

Vriska made a see-saw motion with her hand –  _ kind of _ .

“Not… really. I was born near here but I was taken to New York when I was a wriggler… a little kid. I actually got put into foster care with the LaLondes. Grew up, went back to Boston with Kanaya for a little bit. Trolls might not have the same family thing humans do, but the Maryam name counted for enough to get my foot in the door with Porrim while she was cleaning house up here. Kanaya and I broke up and she moved back to New York… I stayed here. Not the most exciting story, really.”

Given everything that had happened in the last few years, I was inclined to agree. After all, what was a little organized crime between friends?

I was in the uncomfortable position of trying to turn the facts over in my head and get a clear picture of exactly what the heck was happening. I didn’t even feel right calling this a  _ case _ anymore because it was spiraling out of control – turning into something I couldn’t identify.

And I had that crawling feeling in the back of my head that I had more pieces than I realized. Just didn’t have a way to put them together. It reminded me of another place in another time – an apartment three years back with a murder than looked like a suicide. A trail of clues that had all pointed in one direction and then zigged when it was supposed to be zagging.

I turned away from Vriska and leaned over to Terezi, dropping my voice. “I have no gosh-darn clue where to go from here… other than poking around town to see if anyone knows anything about June. It feels like a bad plan…”

“It  _ is _ a bad plan,” Terezi sighed. “But it’s the only one we have right now.”

I promised Vriska we’d find June – a promise that felt like over-selling what I could deliver but I made it anyway. With that done, Terezi and I excused ourselves to go think over our plan to try to get some kind of information out of the locals.

* * *

**Seaward Vale, Massachusetts**

We decided that we would wait until a little later that evening, when the locals would be back from their work on the ocean and the bars would start to fill up a bit. Both Terezi and I agreed that this was our best chance of actually finding out anything, even if it meant putting more time between June’s disappearance and the present.

The whole situation stunk – June wasn’t going to wander off into the woods and get lost, and she hadn’t seemed like she wanted to run. If anything, she wanted to stay close to Vriska because Vriska did everything in her power to keep her gal safe. Of course the conclusion we’d both already come to was that June had likely been grabbed by someone – most likely connected to the strange letter and the whole Order of the Creators song and dance. At least they seemed interested in probably keeping her alive – maybe some kind of ransom thing, or a power move against Porrim’s Boston Council. Those pieces hadn’t revealed themselves yet.

Once again, we were at Fisher’s Rest and feeling distinctly unwelcome. The joint was a bit busier than before – lots of locals piled in to grab drinks after a long day out in the ocean. The bartender was the same tall slick-haired man with the thick New England accent we’d seen earlier that same day. He glared at us.

“Thought I told you to leave,” he kept glaring as he turned to serve a local. “Don’t have anything else to say to you.”

We walked up to the bar and took seats. I smiled and tapped the bar. “I’ll have whatever’s on tap.”

The bartender shook his head. “Tap’s fresh out.”

I heard Terezi scoff from next to me and cocked my head. “That’s too bad. I’ll have a bottle of whatever beer you’ve got.”

“Beer’s for locals.”

“Fine,” I said, still smiling. “Then I’ll have a nice slice of information about the disappearance of a dame who went walking earlier today.”

I studied the bartender’s face as he heard this, and I knew that Terezi would be studying everything I couldn’t see. The glare dropped a little and his mouth faltered.

“Don’t know what you mean by that. No gals been in here ‘cept locals.”

I felt Terezi tap my thigh and glanced over to see her cock her head a certain way – he wasn’t  _ lying _ exactly but he was leaving a lot out.

“I don’t think she was in here, but I’d like to know if you know anything about a gal who went missing while she took a walk a little ways north of here. Up toward the Serket place.”

The mention of  _ Serket _ got a little bit of a frown out of him – I figured it would. But he mostly stayed cool – just looked kind of annoyed.

“Don’t know why that’d be any of my concern,” he said, leaning over to take a quarter from a waiting local. He produced a bottle of the locals-only beer from under the counter and handed it over. For a minute, I thought he might not have even been lying about the tap.

“It’s just a question,” I said. “As a private eye, I’ve been hired to look into the disappearance. Any information you have would be welcome.”

The bartender shrugged his shoulders. “Probably went up Gloucester way. Not much down here for a city gal anyway. Maybe got herself on a train back to Boston – went back to the life she was accustomed to.”

I kept myself calm outside, but that felt like a bit of a tell. I hadn’t said anything about where June was from. Boston was a fair assumption, sure, but… it seemed awfully specific. I would ask Terezi about it when we got out, but for now things were feeling like they were about to hit a dead end. I had one last hand to play.

“One other thing – does the name  _ LaLonde _ mean anything to you?”

His body language changed so quickly it almost gave me whiplash. He stiffened up and drew himself back a bit. Whatever he was about to start saying was going to be carefully considered and, most likely, absolute bullshit.

“And where did you hear that?”

I shrugged. “Nowhere in particular – just came up during our investigation. Wanted to ask around.”

“Well, you’d better ask somewhere else about that. Get the fuck outta my bar.” He was reaching under the counter and I had no desire to be on the receiving end of another firearm. I tugged Terezi’s arm and we were up and on our way out before the bartender had a chance to do anything else to us.

Back in the Buick and on our way back to Vriska’s, I turned to Terezi as she sat in the passenger’s seat.

“I don’t need your talents to know he was lying his butt off and hiding a whole bunch from us.”

Terezi nodded. “Yeah, no kidding. I don’t think he was lying about her not being  _ in the bar _ , but he knows more about her disappearance than he let on. I don’t know what the LaLonde thing was about, but I’m guessing it’s related to that flyer we found.”

I guessed that as well. We lapsed back into silence as we drove to Vriska’s house, and I kept turning to scant facts I did have around and around.

* * *

**Gloucester, Massachusetts**

Vriska had turned in early. I went to check on her, but I could hear crying from inside her bedroom so I decided it would be in better taste to let her be by herself for the moment. There was a note left in the study that told us we were welcome to use one of the guest bedrooms. Sheets, the note told us, were already on the bed and we could use the bathroom to wash up if we wanted.

Neither of us felt like doing that – we were exhausted. Terezi and I went upstairs, latched the door on the bedroom behind us, and promptly proceeded to strip down and collapse in a heap on the bed together.

I held Terezi close to me, the heat of her naked form seeping into mine. It was comforting and I was so very tired. I felt a groan escape my throat.

“I hate this all so much,” I heard myself saying – almost felt detached from it. “We’ve got nothing solid to go on and I’m so darn scared that something bad is gonna happen… but we can’t do anything about it right now!”

Terezi ran her fingers along my shoulders and back, tracing delicate lines with her nails that faded as soon as they appeared.

“It’s okay,” she said, her hand stopping to rest gently on my back. “We’ll do our best to get her back.”

“I know, but still…” I was trying not to sound as frustrated as I felt. I didn’t want Terezi to get the idea that I was mad at  _ her _ . I wasn’t – I was made at the whole damn order of things that brought us to this point. By the logic of story conventions June and Vriska should’ve had a nice happy ending after the crap that they went through in New York. That had obviously not happened.

I needed to be held – to be comforted. I’d spent so many years building up the walls that had protected me before. The walls I  _ thought _ had protected me. But the truth was that I was just as vulnerable as anyone else. Being with Terezi had given me a safe place to let my guard down. Right then… it was nonexistent.

I was crying. Terezi was already scooting up on the bed to cradle me up against her chest. Her skin was smooth and warm and I could hear her heart beating softly beneath her breast. But I was still crying. She ran her hand up my cheek, gently wiping the tears as they fell.

“I’m sorry…” I said it with a sob. “I’m being a gosh darn mess right now.”

Back and forth – Terezi was rocking me slightly.

“It’s fine, Jane. I love you…”

I sniffled. “I love you too. I’m just  _ worried _ .”

“I know, Jane,” Terezi held me a little bit closer. “You’re doing what you can. That’s all anyone can ask.”

Of course she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. I lay there for a long time, not saying anything and just listening to the gentle  _ whump-whump _ of my gal’s heart. At some point I dropped off to sleep, even if I couldn’t tell you exactly when.

* * *

The rail line and the tunnel were there again, but now I was standing on the other side of the tunnel. I didn’t know how I knew this, but it was the truth. I had crossed over and reached the destination that called to me from beyond.

Welcome home, daughter.

I felt afraid, but also… I felt…  _ welcomed _ . It didn’t actually feel like coming home – home for me was an abstraction so far removed from my reality it might as well be on another planet. Long Island mansions I would never again be welcome inside.

But this felt like…  _ destiny _ . I was where I was supposed to be. And maybe that  _ was _ home after all.

Come to us, daughter. Come meet the rest of your family.

I half-expected the hooded figures from before to be sitting there, crouching… waiting for something I didn’t have the words to describe. But Instead, I looked forward and I saw June. She was wearing a long hooded cloak but I could still make out her face through the shadows.

She looked at me.

Do you know the role you have to play?

I had to admit that I didn’t.

Do you know the role I have to play?

Again, I was drawing a bit of a blank. This was all turning too cryptic for me.

Look to the heavens!

June reached up, pointing skyward. I looked up as well.

All above me, the sky was on fire. Burning embers crashed to the ground and lit everything around me on fire. The fire did not burn me, but I knew it would consume all that it touched.

In front of me, June looked skyward.. And she laughed.

I screamed.


	9. The Connected World

The scream was still on my lips as I woke, flailing and reaching for a gun that was – fortunately – not where I thought it was. I rolled over in the bed, narrowly missed clocking Terezi, and stumbled onto the carpeted floor, completely naked and still patting myself as if my Smith and Wesson would be concealed somewhere on me.

As the waking world came into focus, I struggled to calm myself and breath – I looked over and saw Terezi holding her hand out to me. Without saying a word, I grabbed her hand and she drew me in close.

“Oh god.” I was all I could manage.

“You’re in Vriska’s guest room,” she said, calmly. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”

She was right… except I didn’t think she  _ was _ right. There was something here. Something  _ out here _ hiding in the shadows. Something both malevolent and patient. Something…

_ North of vale. _

I was trying to clear my head and it wasn’t working. I had no clear sense of how long I’d been asleep, what time it was, or even what exactly was happening. Terezi kept holding me, her touch a comforting touchstone against the imagery of the dream. Of course it was my subconscious playing tricks on me – my anxiety and stress taking over and turning my own mind against me.

Except I didn’t think that was right either. That would require too many coincidences to line up just right, and that didn’t feel like it made much sense to me.

“Okay. I’m okay,” I told Terezi, my rapid heartbeat betraying the falsehood in the claim. “Let me just put some clothes on.”

I stepped away from Terezi’s gentle embrace with great reluctance and walked to our small weekend bags to pick out some clothes. Whether or not we had planned to start our day already, I wasn’t going back to sleep.

* * *

I would love to pretend that the phone rang at just that opportune moment when we stepped out of the bedroom. It would be, narratively speaking, extremely well-timed. But this is life, not a story, and the phone didn’t ring for at least another hour. Terezi and I got breakfast in the kitchen and I avoided talking about my nightmare, brushing it off as anxiety.

Vriska joined us eventually, looking like she hadn’t slept very much at all. It was when we were all gathered together at the table when the phone in Vriska’s study began to ring. We all ran to answer and Vriska picked up the receiver. She almost immediately handed it to me.

“Hello?” I asked, unsure if I was going to like what I heard on the other end.

“Jane? Oh thank god I was able to get through to you.” It was Rose on the line, and she sounded frantic – in fact, she didn’t even wait for me to respond. “I need to meet you and Vriska in Boston. This is most urgent – it can’t wait.”

“Rose, June is missing!” I almost yelled into the phone. “This really isn’t the–”

“Fuck! Then I need to speak to you now. I’m getting on the first train up to Boston. I’ll be there by noon – you and Vriska meet me at Faneuil Hall. That’s important – I need to speak to Vriska as well.”

She hung up the phone without waiting for a response. I looked over at Terezi, who nodded – of course she’d heard the conversation.

“Go. I’ll stay here and see if I can find anything else.”

Vriska and I packed light and planned to spend the night in the city if we needed to. I kissed Terezi good-bye maybe a little bit longer than I was originally planning to, but I kept getting that sinking feeling in my guts. June was missing and the clues we found only opened things up more and didn’t bring us any closer to finding her. I hope that Terezi could find out more, and that whatever Rose had for us was worth it.

* * *

**Faneuil Hall, Boston**

In the three decades since the Alternians first came to Boston, the area in and around Faneuil Hall had grown from a kind of marketplace to a full-on cultural exchange. Trolls and humans gathered to trade their own local food, crafts, ideas, and information. It was almost always busy – easy to get lost in the crowd. It was also considered neutral ground by everyone – the Boston Council left the place alone and what few human organized crime syndicates still operated in the area complied with the Council’s version of Pax Alternia.

Vriska and I arrived before Rose and spent some time wandering around. Vriska was mostly acting nervous and jittery – understandable – and I was mostly checking to make sure we weren’t being followed by anyone suspicious. The last time I’d met in a public place to get mysterious information had ended badly and I didn’t want a repeat of the same problem.

Rose arrived about a half hour later, decked out in a pair of smart trousers and a cream-color blouse. As put-together as she always looked, something was clearly on her mind. She flagged Vriska and me down right away.

“We need to get somewhere we can talk,” she said. I looked over at Vriska – the only person here who really knew the area.

Vriska nodded. “There’s an Alternian restaurant nearby. I know the owner and it’ll give us a place to talk.”

The restaurant was only a short walk from Faneuil Hall itself, kind of tucked off into a corner. It had a glowing neon sign written in a curving script that I recognized as Alternian but had no idea how to interpret.

The inside of the restaurant was quiet and mostly empty. The light was dim and pleasant, and I could smell something from that back that was surprisingly appetizing to a very human nose. There was a short troll behind the counter who smiled as we walked in. The troll was dressed in a baggy sweater and wore a floppy hat that partially obscured their face.

“Vriska! Long time, no see.” The troll glanced around nervously, her face suddenly falling. “This isn’t… Council business, is it?”

Vriska smiled at her as we approached the counter. “Don’t worry, Boldir, this is personal. We just need somewhere quiet to talk privately for a few minutes.”

Boldir, as the short troll was apparently called, led us to a table in the back of the restaurant.

“I’ll keep guests away if anyone comes in, okay?” she asked with a smile. Vriska smiled back.

“Sure, Boldir.”

Now that we were all seated, I turned to Rose – it was time to stop dancing around like this.

“Okay, what the heck is going on and what’s so dang important? This is taking time away from us looking for June so it better be real gosh-darn good!”

Rose took a deep breath, as if she were trying to steady herself before unloading a great burden.

“I know how you must be feeling–”

“Don’t give us that patronizing shit, LaLonde!” Vriska interrupted. “My gal’s gone and all you can do is talk about how we  _ must be feeling _ ?! Fuck you!”

Rose shook her head. “I hate to say this, but I think what I have to say might relate to June’s disappearance.”

Vriska glowered. “Okay, so spit it out then, LaLonde.”

“I’m not exactly sure where to start but… Vriska, how much do you remember about when you were a wriggler? Like, a really little wriggler, right after your grubbing?”

Vriska shrugged. “Nothing, basically. I remember being in the troll foster system in New York and that was pretty much a big pile of shit. Then I moved to Boston once Kanaya and I broke up and that was a whole thing.”

Rose looked from me to Vriska. “So… nothing about before you were in New York?”

“God, no – how many times do I need to say it?”

“I thought so. Okay… then I guess I should start this story at the very beginning…”

My family comes from a long line of folks who claimed, at various times, to be able to practice forms of magic. Witchcraft. To be able to communicate with beings from beyond this plane of existence.

Whether or not any of it is true, I have no idea. But the important part is that they believed it… and a lot of other folks believed it too. Sometimes those folks were… hostile towards my family. Enough to where they often sought solitude that would put them away from those who judged them for just wanting to practice their religion in peace.

In the early part of this century, my mother, Violet LaLonde, and the members of her family were getting ready to make a move from the town of Salem in Massachusetts to somewhere with a less… contentious relationship with witchcraft.

As luck would have it, this was around the time that the Alternians began showing up in force from their world. The idea of a whole other universe and the travel between it opened up all kinds of possibilities in my mother’s eyes, and she found a bunch of Alternians who felt the way she did.

I know Alternians don’t typically go with human family structures, but there was one group of them who had kind of adopted the idea. A group who also claimed to be able to manipulate the forces of magic.

The Serkets.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Vriska started to rise up from her chair, but Rose put out a hand and Vriska sat back down.

The Serkets became quite close to my mother. I don’t know the name of the original member of the family that she had contact with, that information has been lost to anyone who’s still alive.

But… see, eventually the Serkets and the LaLondes decided they were going to just give up and make their own town. They moved north, towards Gloucester, and formed a town out in the woods where folks would be unlikely to stumble on it by accident.

A few years went by and my mother had her first daughter – that was my sister Roxy. The Serket matriarch had created a grub as well. That was a troll named Aranea Serket. The original Serket decided to treat the wriggler like a human child and raise her as if she were an actual daughter in this village that she and Violet had helped form.

And then, about twenty-seven or -eight years ago, another human child was born… that was me. And there was another grub as well… a troll named Vriska.

This time Vriska actually stood up and I saw her eyes grow wide.

“That’s… that’s bullshit! There’s no way! I don’t…”

Rose put out another hand and her expression looked… sad. Vriska sat down again, nervously rubbing the fingers of one hand with the other.

The thing is, something happened between the Serkets and the LaLondes in that village. I was too young to remember, and Roxy wasn’t much older. She remembers there being some kind of fire or something and being rushed out of the village with me and Vriska. We would’ve been so small at the time – I don’t remember it and obviously Vriska doesn’t either.

When we got to New York, my mother was gone…

Rose stopped telling her story and her face fell. I could see tears streaking her cheeks and heard a small, strangled sob escape her throat.

I don’t know how it happened, but I know that she was killed. I assume that the Serket matriarch was killed as well. That’s basically got us up to the present day… more-or-less… as far as I can tell you.

I noticed that she very pointedly avoided saying anything about the ultimate fate of Aranea Serket. I wasn’t sure if that was a specifically sore spot or if it was just something she didn’t know much about, but the omission was worrying.

Rose was still looking and the tears were still welling up.

“When you mentioned that flyer that talked about my mom – and I’m sure it meant my mom – I got really worried. I never went back up there and I never thought much about it, but it sounds like someone up there has been thinking a lot about her.”

I shook my head. “This is a darn fascinating lesson, but how does it relate back to what happened to June? In case you haven’t noticed we’re still very much under the gun on that!”

“I think,” Rose said, “that her disappearance might have something to do with the folks up there that seem to at least know who my mom is. It feels like too much of a coincidence that they targeted June when she’s so close to Vriska… the last Serket still at large.”

That felt like a telling statement too, but I didn’t push it right then. It was a lot to take in.

I wasn’t sure how she was going to respond, but I needed to ask. “Can you come back to Gloucester with us? I know it’s probably a heck of a lot to ask but… we really need help finding June.”

Rose opened her mouth, then seemed to think better of what she was going to say and closed it again. She waited before finally responding.

“I don’t know how I feel about it, but I also feel like it’s something that needs to be done. Fine.” She stood up from the table. “Let’s go.”

Together we stood up and walked out, bidding Boldir goodbye as we left the restaurant. Outside, the crowd was getting thick as the afternoon wore on and folks started coming back from their lunches, choosing to stroll leisurely through the market instead and dawdle a while before heading back.

We were about halfway to the car when I heard a terrible and familiar sound –

The  _ crack _ of a rifle began to echo off the nearby buildings, the sound battering at my eardrums. As the tempo of the gunfire increased, I saw the first of the crowd drop. Two trolls went down, brilliant spots of color expanding from their backs.

Everything was moving too slowly – as the shooting continued, the crowd seemed to move like thick syrup. They were confused – startled by this sudden interruption. I was too, and I’d been shot at before!

More people went down – a handful of trolls and some humans that were chatting with each other and hadn’t been quick enough to move out of the way when the shooting started.

If it weren’t for Vriska, I would’ve been next on the list. She shoved me down, landing hard on top of me with a grunt. Bullets passed so close by I could hear them snap in the air above my head. Rose had already thrown herself to the ground behind us and she had started to crawl forward.

The crowd was running everywhere and I couldn’t see where the shooting was coming from, but it was still happening.

All at once, the sea of people parted and I saw them – a large troll holding a Browing Automatic Rifle. He was reloading, but he saw me.

I froze.

My hands were locked in place, painfully far from the revolver I had slung in my shoulder holster.

I felt hands reaching around my midsection and Vriska had drawn my revolver from the holster. She sighted down the barrel and squeezed the trigger until only the spent casings were rotating around.

She missed the first two shots by a mile, but the other four connected and the troll went down, hard. His BAR clattered to the cobblestone street as he dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes.

Vriska had her arm up under my shoulder and was hauling me to my feet. Rose was already standing.

“We need to get the fuck out of here!” Vriska yelled. I nodded like an ass and followed along as she led us to the car. I had no interest in sticking around to see if there was another shooter waiting. Let the cops figure that one out.

Vriska floored it and the car jumped to life, roaring down the street and away from the scene of ghastly slaughter that had played itself out before our very eyes. Once we had put a couple miles between us and the massacre, Vriska pulled the car over. She was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating.

“We need to get back north…” she was gasping as she talked.

“No.” Rose interrupted her from the back seat. “We need to go to Miskatonic.”

Miskatonic was a small town to the south of Boston and was, as far as I knew, known only for its third-rate college and asylum.

“Why?” I asked.

Rose looked down. “Because… I didn’t tell you something before.” This didn’t surprise me.

“The other Serket – Aranea – she in Miskatonic Asylum.”

That  _ did _ surprise me. It was also profoundly bad news.

“Okay…” Vriska said it with a gasp. “Fine… if it’ll help me find June. But I… I need to rest… I can’t do this…” She was visibly shaking. Also, even if we left right then the asylum would be unlikely to allow visitors that arrived later in the afternoon.

“Fine, let’s get off the street through – and let me drive,” I said. Vriska nodded weakly and we switched seats and headed for a nearby hotel.

* * *

It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was clean and it wasn’t currently being filled full of lead by a goon with a BAR, so it would do. We ended up splitting two rooms, with Rose taking one and Vriska and I in the other. The room Vriska and I were in had a bed and a couch in it, so I agreed to take the couch while she got the bed. Truth be told, I didn’t care much one way or the other – once the adrenaline wore off I was exhausted and I was just happy to have a place to get some rest.

We ventured out to eat and poke our heads around a bit in the late afternoon – folks were talking about the shootout downtown and the coppers had apparently been out already and weren’t overly concerned with finding the specific person or person who’d filled the original shooter full of holes. Information wasn’t exactly forthcoming, and I knew it’d be half rumors and speculation anyway. Not even worth paying attention to.

That evening we were back in the hotel room, and Vriska came a sat down next to me on the couch.

“I’m so fucking scared.” It was a bold choice for a cold open, for sure. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

“I’m so scared for June… I don’t know where she is or what’s happening to her. I feel so bad for dragging her into this.”

“Heck, I wouldn’t say you dragged her into this…”

Vriska shook her head. “Why not? You heard what Rose was saying… this is tied back to me, at least a little bit. June’s got nothing to do with any of it. This is just like New York all over again… I’m just a fucking weak spot… a fucking black mark on her life…”

Vriska was crying. No question or doubt – she was leaking from both eyes right down the front of her shirt. She sobbed and I reached out to put my hand on her shoulder – it felt like the right thing to do.

“I’m just… so fucking useless at this. I love her so much and I’d do anything to keep her safe… and she keeps ending up in danger. She doesn’t deserve this – you know June’s this… just… she’s such a  _ good _ person. She cares so much about everyone.”

Vriska paused, sobbed loudly, and leaned against my shoulder.

“Even me! She cares so much about me and I don’t even know why the hell she does.”

I wasn’t going to pretend that I was especially well versed in either of their personal lives – we’d ended up bonding in a peculiar way through our shared experiences, but that wasn’t the same as really being a part of someone’s life. I felt like I was closer to Vriska – and June by extension – than some random person on the street, but closer in the way that you got when the same folks were shooting at you a lot.

But still, I felt like I needed to say something. “Vriska, I can tell how much you both love each other. I’ve seen you willing to go to war with the Council to keep June safe. You love her and you do what you can to make her happy… I don’t know what else you can expect from yourself.”

The sobbing stopped and Vriska hiccupped. “I know… I just want her to be safe and I want her to be happy. I can’t help it… I feel like maybe sometimes that she doesn’t deserve to be with someone so  _ damaged _ all the time. You know?”

Personally, I’d found that my damage had sought its own level – I’d ended up in a relationship with someone who was, at the end of the day, very similar to myself in that regard. So maybe I didn’t  _ know _ exactly, but I also understood where Vriska was coming from. At the very least, I could understand how she felt about the woman she loved so dearly.

Right then, I missed Terezi something fierce. I was still working on sheer terror from earlier in the day and I wasn’t going to come down until the morning. I would’ve given anything to be able to hold Terezi and feel that sense of comfort. Even if she was only an hour or two away, it didn’t matter – she might as well have been on the other side of the world.

“Vriska,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a question of being worthy or not, or any of that. June’s a grown woman who’s making her own decision to be with you. Stop second-guessing yourself so much and trust her judgment. You understand?”

I heard Vriska laugh lightly and she settled against me. This woman, who had been a stone-cold killer just a few hours ago – who was, despite all of her bombastic personality, another half-broken victim of circumstances. Life had a way of doing that – of taking us and turning us into caricatures of what we once were. I felt like Vriska understood this somewhere deep inside herself. I think that’s one of the reasons why she loved June so deeply. Because June brought out the best elements of who she really was when all the masks were taken off and put away. Because June understood how that kind of thing worked maybe better than anyone, and was able to look past it to see into Vriska’s heart.

I thought about that for a while in silence, and it was about ten minutes before I realized that Vriska had fallen asleep leaning against me. I didn’t want to wake her, so I just sat there and waited for sleep to claim me as well.

It would be several hours before it did, and in the end I would wish it hadn’t.


	10. In-patient

Vriska was lying in the middle of the field, not moving. There was blue blood everywhere – so much blood. That by itself would’ve been plenty shocking, but the fact that June was standing over her, smeared in her lover’s blue blood, was really the icing on the cake.

I was about to scream, but something inside me stopped it… because I was the one standing over Vriska’s body. I had my revolver out and I felt a weight on my head. It was a crown on my head – I don’t know how I knew it, but it was a certainty.

I had a crown, my revolver, and I was laughing. I was laughing, and point my Smith and Wesson down at Vriska. She wasn’t dead – near it, but not quite. She struggled to turn herself and looked up at me.

“Help…” she barely managed the words out. I clenched my grip around the revolver’s cool handle and everything inside of me was fighting this, but it felt so  _ right _ .

Do it! She needs to understand! They need to know the penalty for betrayal!

And, as much as I hated to admit it, there was a certain convincing power to those words. I  _ wanted _ to pull the trigger – to see the brilliant cerulean blood splatter on the floor as Vriska’s essence left her and she became yet another withered, traitorous husk on the floor…

* * *

The shock of waking was matched only by the realization of what I was doing. I had gotten up from the couch.

I was holding my revolver in my right hand.

I was pointing the gun directly at Vriska, who was still sleeping on the bed.

My eyes went wide as I was fully awake and I immediately de-cocked the revolver and set it down. I could feel a well of panic rising up, threatening to overwhelm me. I’ll admit that I’m not as quick with a heater as my gal Terezi, but that didn’t mean I was a stranger to holding iron. I knew not to wave the thing around like a damn toy!

I shook my head, as if that would somehow clear it. Outside, the daylight was still just coming in over the horizon – it couldn’t have been any later than six in the morning.

This was too gosh darn much for me! I’d been getting weird feelings since we started on this case, and sleepwalking into nearly blowing my acquaintance’s head off wasn’t exactly helping the matter. I walked over and shook Vriska awake.

“Hmmm… what is it?” She sounded tired, of course – she probably hadn’t gotten to sleep right away with everything on her mind.

“We’re getting Rose and we’re driving to Miskatonic. I don’t care what time it is. We need to get the heck out of Boston –  _ I _ need to get the heck out of Boston.”

Before heading out, I made one stop at a local telegram office and had them write up a message to deliver to Terezi as soon as possible.

Terezi -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** We were attacked but are okay -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Attacker is dead -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Be very cautious -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Going to Miskatonic Asylum -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Send word to front desk of your findings -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Be careful -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** With love from Jane

I hoped it would reach her shortly, but we didn’t have time to try to get in touch with her directly. We had a bit of a drive, and we had important business to attend to as soon as possible.

* * *

**Miskatonic, Massachusetts**

Miskatonic, tucked to the south-east of Boston about halfway to Cape Cod, was a surprisingly unpleasant little town. It’s two defining features were the Miskatonic College and, of course, the Miskatonic Asylum. The College was scarcely worthy of the title, notable only in that it had a large library full of dubiously sourced books on the occult. There were professors that taught courses in the stuff there, and I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d been able to stay afloat all these years. Rumors abounded, Vriska had told us, about a secret donor who’d been largely funding the continued existence of the College for years.

Surrounding the college was a scattered collection of housing and local businesses catering primarily to the few active students. This mostly consisted of a luncheonette and a small general store. The housing was mostly in various states of poor repair, and I didn’t envy the students who had to make their homes there.

The asylum rose up out of the trees as we approached – someone had decided that the thing it needed most was to have a massive gothic clock tower attached to the front of it. Once we were past the trees, it looked like a massive, squat fortress that had been sandwiched into the middle of this generally unappealing town. It added a distinctly oppressive atmosphere to the place. Make sure you study, or you’ll end up in the looney bin with all the other crazies.

I shuddered, and very abruptly I did not want to be anywhere near Miskatonic or its hulking asylum. But it didn’t matter because we were pulling up and parking and then we were walking inside the massive entry doors and I felt small and afraid. This was a place of pain and torment, not of healing.

The lobby was all cool gray stone, austere and off-putting. The front desk of the asylum stood at the far end, with a white-shirted woman with her hair tied back into a bun sitting there reading a pulp novel.

“Can I help you?” She sounded bored as she looked up from the book and glanced over us.

Fortunately, Vriska had called ahead and dropped enough Council names to get us on Aranea Serket’s visitor list. She’d left my name and agency, just as an extra measure against them giving us a hard time.

“We’re here to see Aranea Serket,” Vriska said. “Under the name of Jane with Pyrope and Crocker, Investigators – we’re expected.”

The woman nodded, looking unimpressed, and checked a small notebook sitting next to her. She scanned down, nodded, and reached out to take a telegram envelope from under a small pile of papers.

“Here, this came in a little while ago. When you’re ready, Jimmy will take you back to see the patient.”

I took the envelope and quickly opened it. Sure enough, it was a response from Terezi.

Jane -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Glad you’re okay -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Something came up here -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Someone following me in town -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Keeping distance, but same smell as before -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Doesn’t know I’m aware -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Return to Gloucester ASAP -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Will be careful -(STOP)- **_  
_ ** Love Terezi

And that was more bad news. Terezi could take of herself better than anyone, but I couldn’t help but worry about her. Not to mention if the same folks were following her that had tried to ice us at Faneuil Hall – that would be bad.

I didn’t have time to worry about it right then – our only lead was in here and I needed to talk to her. So I waited with Rose and Vriska for Jimmy to come out.

Jimmy was a big fella – six foot five and probably three hundred pounds of pure corn-fed muscle. He was wearing a crisp white uniform and not smiling. I didn’t like Jimmy very much. He grunted at us and motioned for us to follow.

So we went back through a series of locked doors, past rows of rooms that were basically just cells. Finally we came to one room that was like all the others. Jimmy nodded.

“This is her.” He liked to keep things short and simple, I saw.

He opened the door to the cell, and I looked inside.

The padded gray walls around the cell were stained here-and-there with blue. I could only assume that was Aranea’s blood. In the middle of the room sat Aranea herself, facing away from us.

She turned, and I gasped.

She looked just like Vriska – the only main difference being that she had shorter hair… and one of her eyes was covered in a bandage that showed the telltale blue stains of her blood. She was wearing a loose-fitting white shirt and pants. These were also stained blue in places. Her wrists and arms were covered in marks like she’d been picking at them with her claws. If the asylum had been doing anything to prevent her from hurting herself, it wasn’t immediately apparent.

Aranea looked us over with a glazed, glassy expression in her good eye. When she got to Rose – not Vriska, but Rose – her eye widened and her mouth twisted.

“Violet?!” She bent over and started crying, holding herself and rocking back and forth on the padded floor. Rose walked closer to her, still keeping back a bit.

“Oh Violet… thank god you’re here. I thought you’d never come back and they’d just keep me here forever. I tried so hard to tell them… to tell them about the tunnel and the tracks and all the fire. They told me I was crazy…”

My mind was racing. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard my own bizarre dreamscape echoed by someone who had no way of knowing what I had been seeing.

“I thought you were dead,” Aranea said. “Violet – they told me you were dead but I never really believed them!”

She looked over at Vriska and her eye opened wide. “Vriska?! Oh my god you’re so big now! My little sister – you were just a baby when I saw you last!”

Her use of the human words wasn’t lost on me. I stepped forward.

“Aranea, my name is Jane Crocker. I’m an investigator working for Vriska here.”

Aranea nodded. “Yes! Like Sherlock Holmes! I loved those books as a child! Is the game afoot?” She laughed, but it sounded sad.

“After a fashion,” I said. “Aranea, this isn’t Violet here – this is her daughter Rose. I’m here to investigate the connection between Violet’s death, a kidnapping, and the Order of the Creator.”

It wasn’t quite the truth – I wasn’t sure how all the pieces fit together, but I had enough to start forming hypotheses and seeing how they checked out.

Judging by the fact that Aranea made a sign I didn’t recognize over her heart and gasped, I felt like I was hitting home.

“No! Alpha, Omega, the circle that binds! You’re dealing with dark, evil forces.”

“I know,” I said. I was tired – this was tiring and I was so far beyond trying to play it cool. “They tried to kill us yesterday. I need to know what they want from us. I need to know what they mean by the Heir. I need to know more than I do because a young woman’s life is in danger.”

I was still mixing what I knew with pure speculation, but Aranea only seemed to grow more afraid. I wished Terezi was there to help confirm it, but I felt like I was stumbling into a decently sized vein of the truth.

Aranea looked down and sobbed – she began to pick at her arm, then stopped. “I told them I didn’t want to go back. I told Kankri I couldn’t go back!”

My head started to hurt – all the way in the back, crawling up the spine.

“I told Kankri and he didn’t listen. I was in my hotel and I was going to take the train to New York in the morning. I knew Violet had sent her kin there… I wanted to find my family. But they came in the night and they took me away.”

The headache was spreading up into the top of my head now – my vision was getting fuzzy.

“Where did they take you?” I asked.

Aranea shivered. “Back to the village. To the place I grew up – they rebuilt it, but it’s not like it was. It’s evil now… Kankri made it into a bad place.”

“Where is the village?” I needed to know – my headache was getting worse.

“North of Seaward Vale. Go north along the old road until you find the old railroad tracks. Follow them north to the tunnel and keep going through. It’s partially blocked, but it’ll take you out into the woods… that’s where they live now. In the ruins of the old village.”

I took a step backward, but I was stumbling. The headache was so bad I could barely see straight. I think I was able to say something before I passed out, but it wasn’t anything anyone could understand.

And then everything went black.

* * *

She was afraid of her gift.

Everything was black around me.

Aranea was too weak and stupid to understand what I offered her!

I knew that I was inside the tunnel.

I gave her the chance to become a GOD!

The tunnel was opening – opening to a shallow valley lined with thick trees. And in the valley, there was a village. A village that had been ravaged by fire and time and then rebuilt into a shadow version of itself.

The village that had no name.

How DARE she reject my gifts?! But you wouldn’t do such a thing… would you?

* * *

When my eyes opened again, I was lying on a cot in the middle of a white-walled room. Above me, the water-stained ceiling sprawled in all of its squalor. I strained to look around and saw Rose and Vriska sitting in a nearby chair – it looked like I was in whatever passed for an infirmary in this place.

My suspicion was confirmed when a short fella wearing a white coat walked up to me, smiling.

“Oh my you had a bit of a spill,” he said. “Looks like maybe you fainted – didn’t get enough in you to eat this mornin?” He laughed.

“Water,” I managed to get out. My throat was burning.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It happens. We’ll get you some water no problem.”

He left and returned with a glass – I downed it in a couple gulps and handed it back. Feeling a bit better, I swung my legs over the side of the cot and put my feet down.

Before I could ask him another question, I heard someone yelling from another room down the hall.

“I DON’T BELONG HERE!”

Vriska gasped. “Porrim!”

I glared at the doctor. “What the heck is going on here?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t disclose sensitive information about our operations or patients. But rest assured I’ve trained directly under the great Jacob Harley back during his heyday, when he was perfecting the Harley Method of Mental Wellbeing.”

The doctor smiled. I needed to talk to Porrim and I needed to do it right now. I saw an opportunity – I made my move.

“So was that before or after Jacob Harley decided to start selling little girls out to disgusting older men?”

The doctor’s face went indescribably pale. He stammered. He stuttered.

“Give me your coat or I’m going to start digging into your past and I’m not going to stop until I hit something worth holding over your head.”

I could see by his expression that he was absolutely terrified – and he had good reason to be. I might not be as quick with the gun or as adept at finding liars out as Terezi, but there was no one better at chasing down information that didn’t want to be found. Without another word, the doctor handed me his coat. I took off my own suit jacket and slipped on the white doctor’s coat. It didn’t fit perfectly, but it was close enough.

“Watch him,” I said to Vriska and Rose. “I’ll be right back. If he tries to move, stop him.”

I walked around the corner toward where I could still hear Porrim’s voice. I checked carefully to make sure that Billy wasn’t one of the orderlies attending but instead it was two shorter men wearing the same white uniform. I walked up, looking as official as I could.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, but this woman is my patient and I won’t have you manhandling her like this.”

They snapped upright and looked extremely nervous. I say a glint of recognition in Porrim’s eyes and the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.

“Gentlemen, I need a moment to speak with this patient in her room. I’ll knock when I need you fellas to let me out again.”

They nodded enthusiastically, eager to preserve their jobs, and let Porrim and I into the room.

“Miss… Maryam, right? I believe you’ll find that this will all be cleared up soon.”

As soon as the door closed and I knew we could be heard, I walked over and dropped the act.

“What the heck, Porrim?!”

She glared, but she wasn’t going to be Ms. Maryam. Not considering the circumstances.

“I thought Dirk was supposed to be taking you home to rest!”

She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. Dirk took me back home and I went to sleep, but then he went out the next day to finish up some stuff at the club. While he was gone, two goons busted in the door and hauled me off here. They kept me in a little cell for a day and then they were taking me over here.”

“Listen, you, I don’t have a lot of time before this whole act comes crashing down so I need to make this quick. What do you remember about the day you had your breakdown?”

“I… I remember being at my desk and I think I fell asleep. I had some kind of dream… something about a tunnel and I could see myself sitting on a throne and there were… bodies at my feet. So many bodies. When I woke up it felt like someone was going to try to get in, so I started shooting… I think.”

So far this was beginning to sound eerily familiar. “What about the cuts on your arms? Why did you do that?”

She looked down, ashamed. “I… I don’t have any idea. I don’t remember doing that. I just remember that Dirk took me home and it was like this fog was gradually lifting and my arms hurt so much but I couldn’t remember why.”

Porrim probably thought it wasn’t helpful information, but I disagreed. A picture was forming in my mind of what was happening – one I didn’t like, but also one I was having trouble escaping from.

“Okay, last few question and then I have to get the heck out of here before someone figures out what I’m doing – do you know anything about a village north of Seaward Vale that burned down a couple decades back? Also, does the name Kankri mean anything to you?”

Porrim put her head down and pursed her lips. “The village seems to ring a bell. I’ve heard rumors about a human and troll community up that way. The name doesn’t sound familiar though – is that the name of the place?”

I shook my head but didn’t elaborate – I didn’t have time to waste. “Last one – I need you to tell me what you know about the Order of the Creator or the phrase  _ The Alpha, the Omega, and the Circle that Binds _ .”

She looked uncomfortable, but she relented. “Fine… I don’t know much about what they are – just that I’ve been seeing and hearing about their flyers around the city. Folks getting hassled by them. Always very mysterious and never leading back to anyone. I see their symbol around – the Greek letters for alpha and omega and a weird dashed circle.”

That was what that was – I hadn’t recognized the Greek and just assumed it was a letter A and some weird nonsense character.

“But you seemed  _ afraid _ before,” I said. I remembered what Terezi had said – she smelled afraid, but it wasn’t fresh. That seemed important. “Like they did something in the past.”

“No, not specifically… nothing I could prove. Just…” she paused and looked around, as if someone might be watching. “When people started asking questions before, they always vanished without a trace. There was another private eye that came around once. Hired by some missing kid’s family – he found some of the same clues that you did, but then we arranged a meeting to swap information and he never showed. I figured he probably just skipped back to wherever he’d come from but… in the back of mind I always wondered. It happened a couple more times and I realized that it wasn’t just some coincidence.”

“Okay, fine. Look… as much as I hate to say this, you should probably stay here for now. It’s probably safer than outside, at least for the moment. I’ll get in touch with Dirk soon and he can help get you out of here and back to safety.”

Porrim didn’t look at all happy with that particular outcome, but she really didn’t have a choice. I knocked sharply on the cell door and one of the guards let me out. They left me alone after shutting Porrim up in her cell and I strolled back to the infirmary, careful not to draw any more attention to myself. I handed back the doctor’s coat and reiterated that if he told a single soul what had happened I was going to find a way to personally destroy him in every conceivable sense of the word.

“Well?” Vriska asked – she had a slightly hopeful gleam in her eye.

“We have to go back to your house – I have a very strong feeling that I know where June’s been taken.”


	11. The Unnamed Village

**Gloucester, Massachusetts**

By the time we got back to Vriska’s house in Gloucester, it was already starting to get dark out. I didn’t really think it would be such a swell idea for us all to try marching into this mysterious village in the middle of the night, so I put in my suggestion that we spend the night at Vriska’s and then all of us head out in the morning.

The first thing waiting for me when we stepped out of the car was Terezi – she ran to me and wrapped her arms around me in a way that was very out of sorts for her.

“Oh shit… don’t ever do that again, Jane!” She was sobbing and holding me and pressing herself as close as she could. “Thank God you’re okay! I don’t know what I would’ve done… thank God!”

I put my arms around her waist and pressed up against her, letting my forehead rest against the top of her head, right between her velvet-covered horns.

“I’m sorry…” It was basically all I could think of and I felt like an absolute fool saying something so weak after almost getting killed, but there it was. Terezi was still crying.

“It’s okay… I’m just glad you’re okay.”

She let go of me and took my hand, leading me inside the house. Vriska and Rose had already gone in – I suppose they didn’t want to intrude on such a personal moment. I could hear Rose on the telephone in the other room – it sounded like she was talking to Kanya and reassuring her that they were okay. Seemed to be a lot of that going around, with the almost getting shot and all that.

“Are we even sure this is a good idea?” Terezi asked, grabbing at my arm. “I mean… I’m all for going in guns blazing, but it sounds like this could turn into NYC all over again.”

I wasn’t going to lie, that was something I was afraid of too. It had seemed a lot more low-key before that tough mug with the BAR had started shooting at us. So either the folks leaving all the creepy flyers everywhere were more well-equipped than we thought, or they had friends who were real movers and shakers. The end result was the same, and I didn’t like it one bit.

But still, what else could we do?

“I don’t like it either,” I responded. “But I don’t really see what choice we have. This is about our only lead right now. Everything traces back to whatever’s happening in the village up north.”

“Yeah, if we can even  _ find _ the place,” Terezi snapped back, her brow furrowed.

She sounded more worried than actually convinced that finding it would be at all difficult. I had this uncomfortable feeling that we were being  _ drawn _ there now. By who or what I couldn’t say, but everything was lining up a little too perfectly.

“You know, forget it. We’ll go in the morning. It’s not like things can get much  _ worse _ !” Terezi sounded… angry? I wasn’t sure what it was. She sounded emotional, in any case.

She turned and walked up the stairs, headed towards the guest room we were sharing, so I followed after. She didn’t say anything else, just stormed into the bedroom with me on her heels. I closed the door softly behind us and walked over to where she was standing by the bed.

“Terezi? What’s wrong?”

Her head was bowed – I moved closer and I could hear her crying softly. I put my hand on her shoulder…

And I was on the bed. Terezi twisted and pushed me back. She was on top of me and pressing herself down with her arms around my back. She was sobbing, loud and ragged now.

“Oh god… Jane… please don’t do this again.” I could feel Terezi’s body shaking as she cried. I reached up and slipped my arms around her waist, pulling her down into an embrace. I could feel the tears dripping on the side of my face and didn’t care. My gal was hurting – I was hurting.

“Okay, okay. It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere.” I held her tightly and I could feel her warmth as she pressed against me. If you’d asked me a few years back, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to love someone so much – to care about another person this way.

“I love you so much…” Terezi sniffled, loudly. She let go of me and sat back, perching on my hips and smiling at me.

“I really… I can’t say I thought I lost you because I didn’t know but… fuck… I felt like I might lose you at any moment. I’m glad you’re back.”

I start to smile and…

* * *

You all have your roles to play.

I was in the village. I had never been to this place in my life, but I knew it as a certainty. I was in the center of the village and in front of me there was a great pile… a heaped mass of…

...of dead bodies. Hundreds of dead bodies in various states of decay, with a variety of horrible injuries. Blood stained the dirt below.

And on the top of the pile, Terezi sat – she was looking down at me and she was  _ smiling _ . But it was a smile that lacked any trace of her personality. The smile of a thing that wore Terezi’s face but was definitely not Terezi.

In time you will learn to accept this.

* * *

“Holy shit! Jane! Jane! Are you okay?!” Terezi was next to me, kneeling on the bed and holding me by the shoulders. I struggled to sit up, but my body felt heavy. I groaned and looked up at Terezi – her face was lined with fear.

“I’m…” I started, then stopped. My head felt like someone had decided to just go to town with a sledgehammer on the inside. “What happened?”

“You passed out! I don’t know why, but you were out for a goddamn hour!” She was leaning in and hugging me, pulled me in close. “Please… I don’t want anything to happen to you! I’m serious… I’ll be really mad if you fucking die or something!”

I could hear Vriska and Rose somewhere nearby, talking. Couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it sounded important. For a second, I wondered if it had anything to do with me. It probably did.

“Urgh…” I managed to get that much out. Very coherent. “I need to talk to you…”

I reached out for Terezi’s hand – she must’ve felt me moving because she immediately grabbed it and squeezed. “Okay, what is it?”

“I’ve been having dreams…”

“Yeah, I can imagine – after everything you’ve been through the last couple days!” Terezi squeezed my hand again. The gal was tough when she wanted to be, but she was a darn sweetheart deep down inside.

“No, I don’t mean just random dreams. It started a few days ago when we were in Boston looking for leads on the Order of the Creator. These dreams about a rail line leading to a tunnel. Beyond the tunnel there was a village.”

I watched Terezi’s face as realization dawned. “That can’t be right – you must’ve heard something somewhere.”

“No. This was before we knew anything about the village up north. I keep seeing these visions in my dreams and hearing this one specific voice. It says all kinds of odd stuff but it never makes sense.”

Terezi was frowning.

“The thing is, I’ve started blacking out and having these same visions. And when I talked to Porrim in the asylum she talked about having the same experience. I don’t mean similar – I mean she had the  _ same _ visions of the rail line and the tunnel.”

“So what the hell does it mean?” Terezi asked, her voice quiet.

“I don’t have any dang idea, but something about that village scares the heck outta me!” It felt like a massive understatement as I said it.

“If you feel like that, we don’t have to…”

“Yeah, we do. I’m getting a hunch that June may have ended up there, or at least there’s a clue to where she is. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Terezi leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Look, try to get some actual sleep. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

I smiled at her and reached out to touch her cheek. Like I said before – I didn’t know it was possible to love someone so much. I linked my fingers in a lock of her hair and pulled her back to me. This time when we kissed, our lips pressed together and I closed my eyes. The kiss lasted for a while, and when it was done my face was still close to hers.

“Terezi,” I whispered, “thank you for everything. I love you.”

* * *

**North of Seaward Vale, Massachusetts**

The road continued for several miles beyond the outer limits of Seaward Vale, then turned into a dirt road. After another mile of that, it became what could more charitably described as a “lane” and finally into more of a walking path. Once it narrowed down to the point where it was no longer passable in a car, Vriska pulled over and shut off the engine.

We were really doing this. Terezi and I both had our pieces hidden under suit jackets, but Vriska was being less subtle. She had the dang lever-action rifle out and was openly carrying it at her side. Her eyes blazed with a fury I’d seen only once before – right before Meenah Peixes had met the business end of a very pointed piece of metal. Vriska was going to get June back – that was something I had no doubt of.

Rose was unarmed – she had insisted that she didn’t need a gun. I wasn’t going to argue with her on that point because, honestly, it didn’t matter. If it came down to it, one more person who might not even know how to use a firearm properly wasn’t going to make a difference. The gal had guts though, I’d give her that!

Out of the car, we began the walk down the dirt path as it continued among the trees. The further we got, the more still and quiet and heavy the air seemed to get. Birds stopped chirping and the only noise left was that of our own footsteps against the scrabbly earth underneath.

We walked for a half hour before we saw it – the railroad tracks. I felt a wave of nausea cross over me as soon as I recognized them for what they were. And they would lead to a tunnel, and that was where we had to go. The nausea passed, but I felt lightheaded. We kept walking.

It was another twenty minutes along the grass-speckled gravel and cracked ties of the railroad tracks before we finally reached the tunnel. It was cut directly into the hill – a maw of crumbling stonework that was covered on all sides by a hill coated in dead grass and withered trees. The tunnel was dark… forboding. More than anything, I wanted to turn and run back to the safety of New York City. To take Terezi and go far away from this place and to heck with whatever happened after.

I started to walk towards the tunnel and the others followed. As soon as we crossed the threshold the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and that lightheaded sense grew stronger – a sense of unreality that increased as we walked forward.

I had made sure to bring a flashlight – Terezi didn’t need one with the way her senses worked, but the same wasn’t true of me and Vriska. I clicked the light on and it shined down the tunnel, illuminating the decaying masonry of the walls and general disrepair of the tracks themselves.

It was maybe a hundred yards in when we saw the first of the marks on the walls.

The Creator Watches Over Us

It was simple enough, but it sent a chill through me that had nothing to do with the cold air of the tunnel itself. In a few more feet I saw what I had now come to expect, but it shook me all the same.

Α◌Ω

Alpha, Omega, and the Circle that Binds. More than ever, I wished none of us had ever seen any of it. It would’ve been better if Vriska and June moved somewhere else – somewhere far away where they could make a fresh start. Terezi and I could stay in New York and work our cases while our “anonymous” donor (who was, everyone involved already knew, Jade Harley) provided us with funding.

It wasn’t an option anymore. I led the way as we walked down the tunnel, and a couple hundred yards away I could see the pin-prick of light from the tunnel’s end. I wanted to break and run – to get to the other side as fast as possible. I felt like I had been trapped inside of a tomb and the door was about to close in one me.

I felt a soft hand grab my left arm and heard Terezi’s voice near me.

“It’s okay. I’m here with you.”

It wasn’t much, but I already felt calmer. We were halfway to the exit and I was feeling more steady – less uneasy. It all still felt unreal, but I was starting to feel like I could manage it. Terezi kept her hand on my arm as we walked and that helped a lot. The gal had a kind of sixth sense for emotions, whether she admitted it or not.

Ten yards from the exit and I was feeling nervous again. I could see beyond the end of the tunnel – the railway continued and the hills rose up on either side of it. The trees were surrounding the natural depression of the railway and I knew the village was somewhere inside. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was there – to learn what secrets it hid behind this veil of decay.

We walked out of the tunnel and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the light. I squinted, blinked, and the world came back into focus. Up ahead, the railroad tracks abruptly cut off, having been removed at some distant point in time for some unknown purpose. A stand of brush was piled conspicuously in the middle of the path.

“It’s a trap,” Terezi muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. “Don’t do anything stupid and don’t pull your piece. If they wanted us dead it would’ve already happened.”

A piece of the brush moved, and a figure in a dark gray cloak moved forward. It looked just like hitchhiker I’d seen before. The figure pulled back their hood, revealing a troll who looked strikingly similar to Karkat Vantas, the pawn-shop owner in New York City. But this troll had horns that were cut off part-way down. Other than that and superficial differences like hair and clothing, they could’ve been a twin.

Vriska had her rifle up before I could say anything, but the troll only waved nonchalantly.

“Please lower your weapons, my children,” he said, his voice carrying easily over the distance but still somehow quiet. “I mean you no harm… but if it comes to violence, I will not hesitate.”

The voice was pleasant to hear, but there was real menace under the words. I believed him when he said it.

“There’s at least twenty of them,” Terezi said, still too quiet to be overheard.

“Vriska, drop your gun,” I said, a calmly as I could possibly manage.

Reaching slowly, Terezi and I drew out our own heaters and dropped them to to the ground. The troll in front of us nodded and smiled.

“Thank you, my children. If you will come with me, you will find answers to so many questions – those you have asked yourself and those you do not even know you need to ask yet.”

The troll motioned to us. “Please, come with me.”

I was getting the overwhelming sense that this wasn’t a request.


	12. Within Four Walls

Of course, the first thing I did was to black out. I swear that was part of the plan all along, and if we both stick to that story no one can say any different!

When I woke up it had been… actually, I wasn’t sure because I woke in a plain room with boarded-up windows lit by a single lightbulb in the center. As I struggled with the fog over my mind to regain full consciousness, I tried to take stock of the little details around me. The more I could figure out, the more I’d have to work with.

Obviously the strange troll with the filed-down horns and his posse didn’t want us dead, or that would’ve already happened. Or at least didn’t want us dead right away. That left a wide gulf of possibilities and a lot of them were pretty bad. I wasn’t going to drive myself up the wall imagining all the various things that could happen – instead, I kept focusing on details.

I wasn’t tied up. I tried to stand up, but my head was still feeling weird and it hurt to move too fast, so I settled for sitting on crossed legs and looking around from there.

The room wasn’t large – maybe ten or fifteen feet square – and had a series of three small windows all covered with boards. The door in the had a heavy look to it – it was probably reinforced and almost certainly locked. The boarding on the windows looked tough too – I seriously doubted I’d be able to break through.

The walls and floor were all plain – made of what looked like pine. The only thing resembling furniture was a reed mat that I’d woken up on. Beyond that, the room was completely empty. There was a layer of dust over most of it, marked only by a set of footprints and a long straight drag mark where I figured they’d hauled me in. A thick layer of dust surrounded the mat itself – it looked like no one had touched in in some time.

After I got used to sitting for a bit, I felt comfortable with the idea of trying to stand again. Slowly, I pushed myself to my feet, bracing against the dizziness I felt coming up on me. And I was on my feet again, standing shakily but standing nonetheless. Gosh darn did it feel good to be able to do that!

I walked the length and width of the room and nothing stood out to me. I tried the door which was, of course, locked. Even pushed at the boards on the windows – those were all solid. Without any kind of tools or resources, there was no way I was just going to be able to get out of here.

As I walked, I tried to turn this over in my head. It was hard to think of something so personal as a “case” but that was what I needed to do. I needed to work everything over and learn as much as I could.

It didn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that the Order of the Creator were the ones behind this. They’d shown themselves to have resources – and from the very evasive responses I got in Seaward Vale they were either in control of the town, deeply entrenched in it, or strongly allied with the residents.

The attack in Boston didn’t make sense. Or maybe it was someone else – some Council offshoot or something that had nothing to do with the Order. That felt off, but so did every other possible explanation.

And the dreams – the dreams that had apparently been shared by a number of other people and specifically predicted the village I was now, presumably, in. I had no rational explanation for those things, so my mind spent most of its time ignoring the whole situation and focusing instead on the things I could directly see and possibly explain.

I paced back to the center of the room and sat down again, trying to clear my head. I needed to get the whole thing back into perspective. To see things how they were and not how I thought they were. It was a heck of a lot harder than I thought it’d be.

There was a heavy knock at the door, followed by a brief pause and the grating sound of a deadbolt being withdrawn. That gave me some insight into the likelihood of being able to break the door down, anyway.

The door opened on creaking hinges and the troll with the partial horns was standing there, dressed in a simple tunic and pants. He was smiling – it was deeply unsettling to see. He put his hands up.

“Ms. Crocker, please rest assured that I mean you no harm.” The smile widened and I felt like I was going to be sick. “May I come into the room?”

He didn’t move toward me, and this whole thing felt so  _ off _ . I finally nodded and the troll took a few steps inside and knelt down on one knee.

“Your passing out had nothing to do with us. You simply fainted away – your friends have already been seen to their own quarters. I apologize for the sparse nature of your accommodations. Please understand that this is merely temporary.”

“Can I get a bucket, at least?”

The troll frowned. “You will be taken to the restroom shortly. When you have demonstrated a willingness to abide by our rules I will happily move you to a more pleasant environment with proper facilities.”

“Where’s June?” I figured I’d start with the major question on my mind.

“Don’t you want to know who we are? Who  _ I _ am? Why you’re here?”

This fella was dense as a Christmas fruitcake. “I figure it doesn’t matter. You’ll either tell me or you won’t. But I’ve got a strong sense you know where that gal is.”

The troll shrugged. “Very well. We do have this June Egbert in our care. She is quite alive and quite unharmed – as all of you will remain if you cooperate.”

I snorted. “I’ll bet. Otherwise you’ll send a goon to kill us on the street, right?”

The troll frowned, deeply. He seemed genuinely hurt by what I said. “That was not my doing. One of our members decided to act recklessly. If Ms. Serket had not already killed him, I would have addressed the matter personally.”

The weirdest thing about it was… I believed him. He didn’t strike me as lying or trying to trick me.

“What about the others?”

“They are all fine,” the troll said, spreading his arms out in front of himself. “Ms. LaLonde and Ms. Serket are both being kept here. Ms. Pyrope as well. All separately, of course, at least until we can determine if you are all willing to cooperate.”

I wished Terezi was there to tell me for sure, but he didn’t seem like he was lying. From his perspective, this was all fine and dandy. What was a little bit of kidnapping?

“Okay,” I said, “So who the heck are you and why are we here?”

The troll grinned – this seemed to please him immensely.

“My name is Kankri Vantas, and I am the current Tender of the Order of the Creator. You are all here because you have a special role to play in the coming years. My job is to prepare you all for this so that you might fulfill your destinies.”

This sounded similar enough to all the other nonsense I’d been hearing that it didn’t surprise me, but something about actually hearing someone say it out loud… it was a strange experience, to put it in the mildest terms I can. This fella actually believed every word he was saying! Every. Single. Word.

“Destinies?” Sometimes the easiest way to get information was to basically pretend you didn’t know what the heck they were even talking about.

Kankri clucked his tongue and shook his head. “No no – it’s not that simple. It’s so much for you all to see at once. I can’t just  _ tell _ you, I have to  _ show _ you and you’re not ready for that yet.”

That was an ominous statement – one that had me back on my heels.

“Can you at least tell me where everyone is? What’s going to happen to us?”

“Your friends are all safe in our community. That is all I can tell you for now, I’m afraid. As to what is going to happen to you… that is largely up to you to decide.”

Kankri stood up again and stretched. “I am afraid I must go tend to other matters now, Ms. Crocker. Someone will be by shortly with some food for you.”

He left the room without another word, closing the door and moving the noisy deadbolt back into place. I was alone again in this sealed room. I lay down with my back against the reed mat and stared up at the ceiling.

* * *

I realized that I’d fallen asleep when I awoke to the sound of the deadbolt being opened again. Bolting upright, I reached for a revolver that was definitely not there. Feeling foolish, I sat there on the mat and waited as the door swung open again.

Standing in the doorway was another troll – they were dressed in what looked like a green soldier’s trench coat and had unkempt hair and a harried, uneasy expression. The troll opened their mouth and spoke in a quiet, small voice.

“Dinner.” They were holding a tray with a bowl and a mug on it. Their voice was soft and light, feminine. Her? I wasn’t sure – troll gender was still a thing I wasn’t entirely clear on.

The troll set the tray down inside the room and back off to the door.

“Wait! Who are you? Can you tell me where my friends are?”

The troll shook her head quickly, her eyes darting around. She closed the door and the deadbolt was back in place.

I got up and walked to the tray – the bowl contained a thick stew that looked like it was mostly potatoes and turnips. I tried a piece cautiously and found it bland but not entirely unappealing. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, and couldn’t remember the last time I actually had something to eat. Before I knew it, I had finished the stew. The mug was just water, but I downed it greedily.

I knew everyone was alive – or at least I knew that Kankri  _ claimed _ that everyone was alive. I didn’t really see what he would gain from lying about it, and it did seem like he was interested in at least keeping us alive, even if it wasn’t exactly comfortable. That meant something… maybe meant a lot.

The most frustrating part was that after everything – even after being pulled right in the heart of the thing – I still had basically no idea what was happening. Foreboding dreams and ominous breadcrumb statements all felt like they had a lot of meaning, but ultimately they didn’t tell me anything useful. It wasn’t very helpful to know that  _ something _ was coming if I had no idea what that something was!

I lay back down and closed my eyes – I was going to at least try to go back to sleep and turn those things over in my mind a bit more

* * *

The first thought I had when I woke up was that I had no idea what time it was, and that bothered me. They’re taken my pocket watch along with everything else. Once I was awake enough to have additional thoughts, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t dreamed.

It seemed like if there was anywhere the dreams would be the worst, it would be the very place that they had foretold. But I had slept remarkably well for a gal who had been taken hostage and stuck in a locked room with only a reed mat for comfort. It wasn’t a very high bar to clear, but I was sailing right on over it.

After what seemed like ten or fifteen minutes of this same cycle of thoughts, I heard the alway-noisy deadbolt and the door swung inward to reveal the troll who’d brought me my dinner.

She looked at me, her eyes wide with fear. “Kankri said to take you out to use the toilet. Please don’t do anything bad to me.”

I realized she was absolutely terrified of me. Whether that was the result of some personality thing on her end of stories that had been told about me – I wasn’t sure on that, but she was absolutely scared out of her wits.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said quietly. “I just want to take my friends and go home.”

The troll shook her head and looked down. “I’m sorry… we aren’t allowed…”

I stood up and walked over toward the troll at the door – she stepped back to let me through. As I cleared the door, I saw that she was holding a small pistol in her hand. So running off probably wouldn’t be a good call. Good to know – I filed it away for future reference.

Outside of the room I was in a short hallway with the same pine floor and walls as my room. There were two other doors like mine down the hallway and a door leading outside. The troll motioned for me to walk to the door.

“Who else is here?” I asked. No answer, of course.

As I walked past the second door, I thought I heard a faint tap from inside. Someone rapping their knuckles against the heavy door. It was barely audible, but I made a note of it all the same.

When I opened the door, I was hit by a wave of fresh air and cool morning light. The building I’d been inside of was a small pine lodge standing on a slightly raised foundation. Nearby I could see several other similar buildings of various sizes and configurations, all nestled in the middle of the trees. Through the trees, there was a larger lodge visible looming up into the treeline. This looked like some kind of common building, most likely. I felt my troll guard tap me on the shoulder.

“We’re going to that building. You get to use the toilet and then Kankri said he wanted to see you.”

I didn’t have my actual, literal private eye hat with me, but I was going to put on my best private eye hat and take in every detail I could. This might be the last chance I had for a while to see this village and figure out where everything was. That was basically my only hope of seeing my friends again and getting the heck out of there!

The troll walked ahead of me, motioning for me to follow. She had brushed ahead with barely a sound, and again it occurred to me that trying to make a break for it might not be the best choice I could make. Instead, I followed quietly… and I paid attention.


	13. A Sense of Destiny

There were trolls making their way around the village, going about their morning routine, but there were a fair number of humans as well. As far as I could tell, it was a pretty even mix of men and women (both the trolls and humans) without any particular distinction being made. They didn’t say anything to either me or my taciturn escort. In fact, I noticed a fair few of them actively avoided even looking at us. They were afraid, but I doubted it was  _ me _ they were afraid of.

I don’t really think it’s especially important to describe the mechanics of me using the toilet. The bathroom itself was a separate building from the larger lodge so I didn’t get to get a sense of the layout of that building. A lot of people were going in and out of it, and I could smell something cooking inside. I figured that was where they all gathered to eat.

When I was done in the toilet, the troll guard had me following her again on a path that led up through the woods, past the lodge. In the distance off to the side I could see a clearing in the middle of the trees where a number of people were gathered around what looked like a large hole in the ground. I wanted to ask what they were doing, but I got the feeling that my guard would be either unwilling or unable to give me an answer.

We walked for a good ten minutes through the woods before we arrived at our obvious destination – a large pine lodge (I was sensing a theme) in the middle of a small clearing. The front door had a large troll with long hair and horns that looked like they belonged on a bull.

“Nepeta,” the troll said with a nod as we approached. “Boss is waiting inside.”

Without another word, the big troll stepped aside and let us through. My guard – whose name I now knew was Nepeta – stepped off to the side once we were in the lodge. The door opened directly into a main room filled with comfortable, rustic furniture. Sitting in a wooden chair was Kankri, his legs outstretched.

“Come sit, Ms. Crocker. Or… Jane? May I call you Jane?”

I shrugged, walking over to take the seat across from him. “Sure, why not? You’ve already kidnapped me so what’s one more thing on top of that?”

He shook his head. “Far from it, Jane. You came to my village – I had every right to kill you on the spot but instead took you into my custody for your own safety. Maybe you don’t see it that way right now, but that is most assuredly the truth.”

I had a very hard time believing this, but it was good to know how he felt generally regarding the idea of killing me and my own volition.

“Okay, sure. But what about June? You kidnapped her.”

“Jane, you are getting ahead of yourself. Aren’t you curious about how we even got to this place?”

“No, not really.” I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to get away with antagonizing Kankri, but I was also mad as heck.

“Well, you will have to humor me, because I have a bit of a tale for you.”

I supposed that I wasn’t actually going anywhere, so I simply nodded and let him continue.

Once upon a time, there were two families – of sorts. The human LaLondes and the Alternian Serkets…

“Okay, I already know this story,” I interrupted. “The LaLondes and the Serkets founded a village – which I assume is this village – and something bad happened and it burned down.”

“Ah,” Kankri smiled knowingly. “But there is more to that story than perhaps you know.”

If you’ve heard the story, I would imagine you know how the LaLondes, practicing their own form of witchcraft, chose to form an alliance with the Serkets, adopt a communal human family structure, and formed this village before everything collapsed and ended in fire.

That is a partially true story – or, a partially complete story. You see, despite my youthful appearance I am in fact Violet LaLonde and Spinneret Serket’s contemporary. I was one of the first to join them in their village.

Spinneret – that was a name that Rose hadn’t known. Of course she didn’t – she was a baby or very small child when everything had ended.

It was a truly wonderful idea. Instead of the hemospectrum and the oppressive blood classes, Alternians could live together as a community. We would adopt the most idealistic of the human interpretations of family and they would adopt our innate familiarity with certain magical traditions. We would live together in peace and harmony. And for a while, that was true.

But I discovered certain things in this village. Ancient things – things that foretold great events to come. I uncovered evidence that would involve all of us in a grand destiny! Not as LaLondes or Serkets like some kind of overgrown human dynasty… but as individuals bound by fate!

I told Violet and Spinneret of this, and they laughed at me. They saw only their own banal sort of magic and their close-minded worship of elder beings. So I quietly gathered my own followers – those loyal not to some charismatic individual but to the very idea of this destiny itself!

Of course the LaLondes and the Serkets did not take kindly to this when they heard the whispers of what I was doing. Such is often the case – visionaries are often persecuted and reviled for what we do. I was still perfectly willing to allow them to continue their childish games, but they insisted that I not be allowed to simply exist as who I was always meant to be!

I had no choice but to expose Violet for the heretic she was. She chose not only to disbelieve, but to actively work against me!

It was regrettable what had to happen to Spinneret. And then Violet responded with such violence – the fire that consumed much of the village and her with it. I had assumed that all of their line died in that blaze.

And I mourned them all. Even as I went off to rally my growing following and rebuild, I was saddened that they had not been able to come to the same truth as myself in time. They would have been wonderful allies, but chose only to fight me at every possible opportunity.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that not one, but TWO of each of the bloodlines had survived! The Serkets in Boston and the LaLondes in New York City. And while they remembered little of what they had been through, I knew that there was the potential to bring them back into the fold if they were willing.

It was a bunch of rambling nonsense I was hearing, but it explained a lot. At the same time, there were questions hanging open that felt important – the importance of June in this whole thing being one of the big ones. 

“That is the basic picture of it,” Kankri said. “Obviously the full story is considerably more nuanced, but I have a long history with the LaLondes and the Serkets. One that is often fraught with disaster, but none of that is the fault of the younger members of their families. I hold no ill will towards any of them – all of the older generation are dead now.”

He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it sent chills down my back. I was very much reminded of the kind of casual murderers that had made the New York Council such an absolute nightmare. Maybe Kankri put a prettier flourish around it, but it was still very much there.

“So how do I fit into the picture then? Or Terezi?”

Kankri smiled. “Directly speaking? You don’t! But you tangled yourselves up so directly with the LaLondes and the Serkets that you have become de facto involved with this. There is more to tell, of course, but for now I think you should be brought back to your quarters to reflect on what you’ve learned. This is, after all, a process.”

* * *

I was back in the pine room with the reinforced door, by myself. Nepeta had led me back in silence and my attempts to draw some more information out of her had been met with only a nervous kind of avoidance.

Once I was back in my “quarters” I decided to test a theory I had. I walked to the wall of the room closest to the other cells in this building. With my fist, I banged as hard as I could against the wall, sending a dull  _ thud _ through the wall.

After a second, I heard a responding  _ thud  _ coming from far away.

Someone was in one of the other rooms.

“VRISKA?!” I shouted as loud as I could and waited. Nothing.

“TEREZI?” I waited again.  _ Thud _ .

I thanked heaven that it was her. Not only was my gal alive, but she had some unique skills that would help a lot.

“Can you still hear me?” I lowered my voice to my normal volume and hoped. There was no way I'd be able to hear her back – I didn't have Terezi's gifts. But there was at least a _chance_ that we'd be able to have a conversation... of sorts.

_ Thud. _

That was good. “Once for yes, two for no?”

_ Thud. _

“Did they take you to the main house yet?”

_ Thud-thud. _

“Do you know where the others are?”

_ Thud-thud. _

That wasn’t good. If anyone would’ve been able to figure that out, it was Terezi.

“Have they let you out into the compound at all?”

_ Thud. _

“Do you know anything else about what’s happening out there?”

_ Thud-thud. _

“Do you know of a way out of these rooms?”

_ Thud-thud. _

It wasn’t surprising, even if it was frustrating. I felt exhausted by all this – I wanted to lie down and sleep. Waking up… that was basically optional at that point. I decided that I would try to get some rest – they’d wake me up if there was something else happening and there was no way I was getting out of here right now.

“Terezi?”

_ Thud. _

“I’m… I’m going to try to sleep for a bit. I love you. I love you so much.”

_ Thud _ .

I smiled, walked back to my mat, and curled up to try to pass some time.

* * *

I supposed I had actually slept, because when I came to someone was opening the door. It was Nepeta, holding another tray of food. She looked even more nervous than before as she walked into the room. But this time, she closed the door behind her. I had no idea what was coming next.

Nepeta walked closer to where I sat, looked around as if someone might be watching her, and leaned down to where I was.

“Your friend June is in the big house. Kankri wants her for something specific, but he hasn’t told me what.” She said it quickly and quietly. “I’m scared of him but I can’t leave. There’s nowhere for me to go. My big sister Meulin left a long time ago and then…”

She was crying quietly – tears streaked onto her cheeks. “He killed her when he found out what she did. He says he wants to help people but he’s lying!”

Nepeta sat down heavily next to me and I scooted over slightly toward her. She leaned in and I was hugging her as she cried.

“I don’t want to be here anymore! You and your friends… you’re not supposed to be here! This is a bad, evil place.”

She lowered her voice again. “I know where Rose is! She gave me something to give to you!”

Nepeta passed me a folded piece of paper. She looked around furtively again and stood up, leaving the food tray there for me. Quickly and quietly, she left the room, locking the door behind her.

I unfolded the paper and saw Rose’s neat handwriting in pencil.

Jane – I was able to convince Nepeta to get this paper and pencil for me. She’s a good person and I believe she can be trusted. She told me that you and Terezi are being held in one building and that June is in the main house.  
  
Kankri talked to me once already and said some vague stuff about my destiny and how I’m connected to everything because of my family. He told me the rest of the story about my mom and Spinneret. I think he’s probably leaving more out but I can’t make him tell me and I feel like he wants to keep me in the dark in particular.   
  
I’m in a separate structure set back from the main village. I’m not sure exactly why but… I think they’re afraid of me, specifically. When they took me to the bathroom, I could see that they’re digging something up out here. I don’t know what but… I feel like it’s calling to me. If that makes any sense at all. I can FEEL what they’re digging up out there.  
  
It scares the shit out of me. Something big is happening here.  
  
Don’t try to reply – Nepeta can pass messages but she’s in great danger for doing so. They will absolutely kill her if they find out. I feel like Kankri will speak to us again soon – I think I’ll have a better idea of how to act at that point.  
  
Hide this under your mat and make sure it isn’t discovered.  
  
-Rose

It wasn’t much, but seeing that note gave me a renewed sense of hope. At the very least, it gave me a sense of a plan. A plan was something I could work with.


	14. A Plan We Can Work With

I woke up again because the door had been opened. I’d been sleeping for what felt like a while.

It was Nepeta again, and she looked absolutely terrified. She walked up to me and knelt down.

“I’m going to take you to see your friend Vriska. If we see anyone, you’re being taken to go pee and this doesn’t happen. Please keep quiet and do exactly what I say!” I could  _ see  _ her shaking as she spoke. I nodded without saying a word.

It was pitch dark outside, but Nepeta didn’t seem to have trouble navigating. We took a different path than the first time out, looping back through the woods and around the pine buildings. After a few minutes, we broke away from the main path and went down a side trail to a single building made of the same pine boards as everything else in the village. It looked too small to have more than a single room, and the door was reinforced like all the other cell doors had been.

Looking left and right furtively, Nepeta opened the latch – I noticed that it had no key or other means to prevent it from being unlocked by anyone who happened by. Faint yellow light came streaming out from inside, and I looked in to see a room very similar to my own, albeit with a simple wooden chair in the corner.

In that chair, I could see Vriska sitting down and tapping her foot nervously. I stepped into the room ahead of Nepeta and Vriska’s face lit up.

“Jane!” She sounded excited but was keeping her voice as low as possible. “June’s alive!”

I nodded, Vriska looked down at her feet.

“I couldn’t… I didn’t realize what we were walking into. I’m feeling pretty fucking useless right now.”

“Don’t say that,” I interrupted. “None of us knew. There might be a couple hundred folks here and they’re all following that Kankri fella around.”

“Kankri told me about the whole thing with the Serkets… with my… family, I guess? I never really knew the rest of them. I was so little when everything went to shit and I didn’t know Aranea in any real way. I feel bad though… I feel bad for what happened.”

“Do you know what’s going on here?” I asked. “I mean, what’s going with the digging they’re doing. Rose… she passed a letter where she said some spooky stuff about it.”

Vriska looked me right in the eye. “I can feel something out there. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like something is… waking up.”

“I don’t think Kankri knows what he’s doing.”

Vriska shook her head. “No… that’s what scares the shit outta me… I think he knows  _ exactly _ what he’s doing.”

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Nepeta, her face wide with fear. “We have to go back. If it’s too long, someone might find out.”

I nodded and moved to get up. Vriska reached out first and grabbed my wrist.

“Jane… please help her. Help June. I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t do this anymore!”

“At least you know she’s alive,” I said.

* * *

I was back in my room, as I was charitably thinking of the makeshift prison cell they’d put me in. Nepeta had taken me back without incident and I was alone with my thoughts again.

All-in-all, it was a bit of a mixed bag. I knew that everyone was alive, which was definitely a good thing. And we had someone on the inside who was willing to help us, which was also solidly in the category of things that were good.

But balancing against that was the mysterious dig and the ominous feeling that Rose and Vriska were getting. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that was about – but I was also pretty sure I wasn’t going to be given a choice in the matter.

Over at my Terezi wall again, I spoke. “Terezi, are you up?”

A wait – maybe a half minute.  _ Thud. _

“Vriska and Rose are definitely alive. June is being held in the big house with Kankri. We’ve got someone helping us.”

_ Thud. _

“Do you think we can trust them?” This was a question I had no reason to think Terezi could answer. Still, I wanted her opinion.

_ Thud-thud. _

Yeah, no kidding. I didn’t really think so either.

“But we don’t really have a choice, do we?”

_ Thud-thud _ . Without hesitation. She was right – what other choice did we have? No matter how frustrating, the nervous gal on the inside was the only chance we had to get in touch with anyone besides Kankri and his weird cult members. As much as I hated to admit it, we were basically stuck.

“I’m going back to sleep. I love you.”

_ Thud _ . It wasn’t quite the sweet nothings I would’ve wished for, but given the circumstances it meant the world to me. I put a hand up against the wall, thinking of the woman twenty feet away from me. This whole thing – not just the being-held-prisoner thing but  _ all _ of it – was making me very quickly hate everything in this world that  _ wasn’t _ Terezi Pyrope. And I  _ missed _ her so much right now. Missed the feel of her smooth skin against mine. Missed the way she felt nestled in my arms. Missed… a lot of stuff.

I muttered to myself. “Oh god when I get out of here I’m gonna really just… go to town on you, Terezi.”

_ Thud. _

She heard me. Because of course she heard me. I started blushing like a newlywed on the first night of their honeymoon… which is a normal response for someone who has had a normal amount of sex with their girlfriend of three years.

* * *

The door opened with the usual amount of noise, but this time it was Kankri standing in the doorway, smiling in a way that I couldn’t help but shudder at.

“It is a beautiful morning, Jane Crocker. Please come with me, for I have much to show you!”

I knew I didn’t have a choice, so I just straightened myself out and walked after him as he led the way. Out into the fresh air. Out into the brilliant late morning sunlight. I was getting thrown off by the fact that the room I was being held in didn’t let daylight in – my sense of time was completely messed up. It occurred to me that this was being done on purpose as a way of breaking me down… or making me more susceptible to whatever Kankri had planned.

“I know that you have not necessarily come to understand our way of life here, but I believe there are things that you have to witness.” He was leading me down the path towards the big lodge. “I believe that this will make you more… receptive to our ideals.”

As we passed the trolls and humans that were going about their daily business, they bowed their heads to Kankri in a display of respect… or submission… or fear. It was hard to tell, and was probably a mix of all three.

The main lodge was almost stunning up close – it was at least four stories tall and looked to be large enough to house well over a hundred people within. The smell of cooking food was strong here – this was clearly the beating heart of the village. But we kept walking, around the edge of the lodge and into the woods beyond. Towards the clearing I’d seen the other day. Towards the dig.

“Truth be told, what I’m showing you here is not my discovery,” Kankri continued, his tone light. Almost playful. “It was first found – the first part of it, anyway – when this village was still home to the LaLondes and the Serkets. It was, in many ways, the catalyst for everything bad that happened here. But I believe it will also be a catalyst for change.”

And that, I realized, was a painfully loaded statement. Change was a neutral factor in and of itself, after all.

Once we cleared the trees, I could see the extent of the dig. Trolls and humans were both involved, marking off large sections of earth into a grid using stakes and lengths of rope. Some of them were holding notebooks and marking things off, the rest were digging with picks and shovels. The excavation of many sections of the dirt was already well underway. I could see evidence of structures in various places – stone foundations that had to have been over two hundred years old.

Kankri stopped walking a few dozen yards from the dig site and swept a hand out across the field of turned earth.

“This is the village of Dunwich. A cursed place if ever one existed – founded in the 17th century by human settlers. Destroyed by fire and madness sometime shortly after the American Revolutionary War. Buried by the earth under circumstances that’re lost to time now. But the LaLondes knew about Dunwich. They knew about the secrets that were buried here.”

Kankri looked back at me and his smile turned cold.

“They wanted to make sure they stayed buried. That no one knew what was contained within this patch of earth. They would doom all of us in order to preserve some sense of order. In the end they feared what they couldn’t control themselves.”

That sounded untrue – at least in part – but I kept my mouth shut about it.

Instead, I found something I thought he’d take in a positive way. “So… what is this thing that you found?”

“Oh no, I haven’t found it yet. Not all of it, anyway – just enough to understand what I’m looking for.”

“Okay… so what is it you’re looking for?”

Kankri smiled again. “Now that is the question, isn’t it? It’s hard to say, exactly. I guess you could say… I’m looking for the end of this world.”

That one wasn’t what I expected to hear – I think my jaw was dropping more than a little bit. Kankri continued.

“Specifically, a way to end this corrupted world and begin a new one – a world free of the evils and pains of this shell we call an existence.”

That wasn’t making me feel less uncomfortable about this whole situation.

“Why do you need us for any of this?”

“Truthfully, I don’t think I do. Well, not you anyway. Nor Terezi. I believe that it is essential that I have Ms. LaLonde, Ms. Serket, and Ms. Egbert. Those three are essential to my plans – the LaLonde and Serket bloodlines are intimately tied to this place. I tried to involve Aranea Serket in this, but she turned out to be too… weak-willed to withstand some of the stresses. My great hope is that her – sister, I suppose you humans would say – will be more able.”

“Then why keep me and Terezi here at all?” I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to ask this question, just in case the answer turned out to be a bullet to the brain. But what other options did I have at that point?

“You are both close to this. Whether you want to be or not. You’ve had the dreams, have you not?”

My breath caught in my chest – Kankri knew.

“Of course you have. I would wager Ms. Pyrope has as well – maybe. It’s hard to know for sure. This place calls to you – it binds you to it. Whether you know it or not, you have a role to play in the coming events.”

He gestured all around. “All of this was foretold – I found the book of S’Burb – the mythological deity of the Creator. But no… this is no myth. This is a reality. The book tells of dark truths – of things that live beyond our reckoning. The LaLondes knew about them, yet they sought to  _ limit _ them like small children afraid of something they couldn’t fully understand.”

Every word of that sentence gave me chills, and I knew that I needed to let Rose know what was happening.

* * *

Back in my cell – I was just going to be plain about it – Nepeta arrived with food that I supposed classed as dinner.

“Nepeta, can you pass a message to Rose if I write it out?” I asked, cautiously. She nodded and produced a pencil from a pocket. I took the paper Rose had written her first note on and scribbled hastily on the back.

Rose, there’s something bad happening here. Kankri showed me their dig and said they’re looking for something your kin knew about way back. The remains of a town called Dunwich and something about causing the end of the world. I don’t know many details, but he talked about a book of S’Burb and said it was all connected back to us.

I finished the note quickly and passed it to Nepeta, who concealed it without me even seeing how. She left the room quickly and I walked over to my Terezi spot to talk to her – in as much as I could have a conversation in yes and no’s.

“Terezi?”

_ Thud. _ Right away – she was up. She probably heard Nepeta coming in.

“Can I ask you something kinda weird?”

_ Thud. _

“Have you… been having strange dreams. About this village, or about the end of the world?”

No response. A pause. Silence.

_ Thud. _

But she hadn’t told me about them when I confessed to her. She’d seemed very confused. The deduction wasn’t hard.

“They started when we came here, didn’t they?”

Another pause.

_ Thud. _

The opposite of mine. Who knew why. It didn’t matter anyway. Kankri’s claim about us being bound to this place was ringing around in my head.

“I’m here, but I need to give some things some thought,” I said. “I love you, Terezi – I’ll talk soon.”

_ Thud. _ My heart hurt.

I sat down on my reed mat and put my head in my hands… and I started to cry. I’d put up so many walls and tried so hard to not let this get to me. Tried so hard to be strong for everyone that depended on me… or that I thought depended on me. It was so much and I had such a hard time understanding what I was even supposed to do.

So I lay down on the mat, still crying, and waited until I drifted off into unconsciousness again.

* * *

I woke, but I was not awake. That much was obvious. I was standing in a deep fog – so intense that the ground was blotted from view completely by the swirling gray mists.

June was there, sitting by herself. And suddenly, I realized – she could see me.

You’re here. I know Vriska is safe. Nepeta told me.

I nodded, and June seemed to understand what I was thinking.

Kankri thinks I’m important to his plan. That I have a special role to play.

She bowed her head and I could see tears falling down.

I think… I think he’s right. I think that something is happening to me here. I don’t like it. I don’t like who I’m turning into! I feel strange…

* * *

I woke up on the mat and felt the rustle of a sheet of paper being shoved into my hand. Nepeta was there. I hadn’t even heard the door open – I must’ve been deep under. She put a finger to her lips.

“I can’t keep passing notes. They’ll find out what’s happening. Kankri wants to see you and Vriska at the house in the morning. I’m worried that something is going to happen soon. Something bad.”

Without another word, she left. I glanced down at Rose’s note.

Jane – I need the book. Whatever that book Kankri is talking about, I need it. That’s the only way we’re getting out of here – I can’t explain it but I need the book!   
– Rose

I felt my breathing quicken and my heart start to race. Everything was coming together in a way that made me feel… terrified. I had no idea what was going to happen next, but the whole idea scared the shit out of me.


	15. Execution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains a major character death.

It was almost becoming routine enough that it felt normal at this point. The door would open, I would wake up, and it would be time to go somewhere. My sleeping and waking was so off at that point that I had no idea how many days had passed. I guessed I’d been there at least two or three days so far, given the number of times I’d been hauled out in the middle of the night. I could’ve been longer – I had no real way to know.

Thankfully, it was Nepeta at the door. She had the same worried expression she’d been almost perpetually wearing for the last… however many days it was.

“Kankri wants to see you. Vriska is going to be there as well.”

“What about Rose?”

Nepeta shook her head. “I don’t know… I’m sorry.”

We were outside again – it was nighttime again, so another day was about to roll over. Or had already rolled over. I knew the general way to the house by now, so I followed Nepeta closely and kept my eyes open for anything unusual. It was quiet and still – the residents of the village had all turned in for the night. I could still see lights on at the big lodge, and supposed there were probably still folks up burning that midnight oil for whatever reason.

It would almost be a pleasant situation if it weren’t for all the hellish nightmare world nonsense that permeated literally everything.

Another trip up through the woods – diverging paths from the big lodge – and we were at Kankri’s house. This time, no one was outside the door. Nepeta opened the main door and we walked into the central room.

Vriska was already seated in a chair and Kankri was standing at the far end of the room, holding a pistol of some kind.

I had no plan – I needed to get a book whose location I wasn’t sure of to Rose somehow without getting anyone killed in the process. It seemed… unrealistic.

Kankri looked directly at me. “Come in and sit, Jane Crocker.”

I did as I was told and took my seat next to Vriska. Kankri walked over towards us.

“I believe it is time for our other guest to come join us.” He clapped his hands loudly and we saw June Egbert walk into the room. Her head was hanging low and she looked like she hadn’t slept in days, but she appeared to be intact. I saw Vriska’s face explode with joy.

“Oh thank god!” She yelled. “June!”

June smiled, but she looked… broken down. She stood next to Kankri.

“June has graciously agreed to participate in my grand experiment,” he said. “She has come to see the value of what I have suggested. I would hope that you both do as well.”

“Why?!” Vriska yelled. “Why would we do that?!”

“Oh, Ms. Serket,” Kankri chided. “You have much to learn.”

He walked to the corner of the room where a small writing desk stood and opened the top drawer. From it, Kankri retrieved a thick book bound in leather. It looked old and worn, but seemed to be in remarkably good shape.

It had to be the book that he had talked about. There was no other explanation.

“A Serket and a LaLonde – the aspect of  _ light _ . Vitally important. Jane Crocker here represents the aspect of  _ life _ – another key one. Ms. Pyrope, when she joins us, will represent the  _ mind _ .”

He walked back over to where June was standing. “There are many possible choices. I have pondered for many years… but the one that I knew we could not do without is Ms. Egbert here… the Heir of Breath. The very essence of change itself. For this is what this process is about – it is about change. It is about the extinction of the flawed and the creation of the perfected.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Vriska asked, her voice harsh with anger. “Why are you being so damn cryptic all the time?!”

Kankri shrugged. “I suppose it is my way. I will speak as plainly as I can. I believe that the town of Dunwich concealed a terrible, beautiful secret – the means by which to bring about the end of the world and create an entirely new one. The means to ascend beyond our mortal frames and attain a kind of power only the gods themselves possess.”

I won’t lie about it – this was sounding more and more disturbing as he went on. But he wasn’t even done yet.

“From reading the book, I understand that once we begin this process that fire will rain from the heavens themselves and cleanse this world. Only our chosen few will be allowed to move beyond into our own worlds – into the process by which a new world can be forged. It will not be easy, but it  _ will _ be worthwhile.”

I needed to know how to get that book from him. Needed enough of a distraction to get his focus somewhere else. To let Nepeta or me or June or  _ someone _ to grab the book and get it to Rose. For some reason that mattered more than anything. I looked over at June, but she dropped her eyes and shook her head.

I glared at Kankri. “And what if none of us want to do this? What if we’re fine with living in  _ our _ world?”

“Such ignorance,” Kankri sneered. “This world is no more  _ yours _ than it belongs to the ants we trample beneath our feet. But we have the opportunity to make a world that truly belongs to us. Think of it… a world free from all suffering. From all pain. From all injustice.”

“Fuck you!” Vriska yelled. I wasn’t sure that antagonizing the man with the gun was necessarily a good idea, but she had her own style. “You’re talking about just killing everyone off to feed your own fantasy world!”

“See it however you want, Ms. Serket. I’m saving the world from itself – it would pain me greatly if you weren’t involved but I suppose I can make do.”

Vriska stood up from the chair. “This is bullshit! You just destroy everyone and call it justice!”

She took a step forward and I saw Kankri raising the gun. “Ms. Serket, sit down.”

“Fuck you, you piece of sh–”

The sound of the pistol cut her off and June and I both jumped. I heard Vriska cry out and she stumbled back into the chair. Cerulean blood was streaming from a wound in her stomach.

I didn’t know what got into me, but I was up out of the chair too, moving toward Kankri. It was a bad decision – I heard the gun bark and felt a white-hot lance in my side. I stumbled sideways and fell to the floor, gasping for air. The pain kicked in a moment later and I was fighting to stay conscious.

June was crying – I looked up and saw that she had dropped to her knees and had her hands up. She was begging Kankri to stop, but I couldn’t quite make out the words.

Kankri walked up to Vriska and looked down at her, his face a mask of stone. He pointed the barrel of the pistol at her head as she sat there gasping in the chair.

“Ms. Serket, do you have any additional comments you’d like to share?”

“Fuck… off…”

Kankri shrugged and squeezed the trigger.

The pistol shouted again in the small room and Vriska’s body jerked back in the chair as a fine cobalt mist sprayed from her head.

June was screaming. That made a lot of sense, really. Seeing your gal’s brains blow out in front of you… generally… generally a traumatic experience… 

I was fighting to stay awake. Fighting to remain present. Fighting…

June was screaming. Something about the sound… it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. It twisted and wrapped around me and something shifted.

It was as if I were everywhere and nowhere at once. As if someone was taking me and re-shaping my very being. I’d never been dying before so I had no point of comparison, but it seemed like this was maybe something else.

I had to get the book, but my body wasn’t even responding anymore. It was hard to even keep focused on anything mentally, let alone try to move. Of course, Kankri still had the gun. If only things weren’t moving so  _ slowly _ now. If only there was some way for me to… 

June was screaming… and everything went black.


	16. Traces

When I woke up it had been… actually, I wasn’t sure because I woke in a plain room with boarded-up windows lit by a single lightbulb in the center. As I struggled with the fog over my mind to regain full consciousness, I tried to take stock of the little details around me. The more I could figure out, the more I’d have to work with.

And something about it didn’t feel right. My head felt strange… like I’d been sleeping for a long time. Which almost made sense from blacking out but… not quite. Something else was going on. I just had that hunch, and I’ve learned not to plan against my hunches.

I wasn’t tied up. I tried to stand up, but my head was still feeling weird and it hurt to move too fast, so I settled for sitting on crossed legs and looking around from there.

That didn’t feel right either… hadn’t June been… it didn’t make sense. I thought I saw her in a dream, and she’d spoken to me.

The room wasn’t large – maybe ten or fifteen feet square – and had a series of three small windows all covered with boards. The door in the had a heavy look to it – it was probably reinforced and almost certainly locked. The boarding on the windows looked tough too – I seriously doubted I’d be able to break through.

The walls and floor were all plain – made of what looked like pine. The only thing resembling furniture was a reed mat that I’d woken up on. Beyond that, the room was completely empty. There was a layer of dust over most of it, marked only several sets of footprints and a long straight drag mark where I figured they’d hauled me in.

And the space around the reed mat disturbed, as if someone had lifted it recently. Carefully, I shifted myself off the mat and peeled up the corner.

Underneath, there was a folded slip of paper. I picked it up, and saw neat handwriting on the side…

Jane read this! You have about twenty minutes!

Shaken, I almost  _ dropped _ the paper. I unfolded it, and the neat handwriting continued.

I can’t explain any of what I’m writing but please listen or people will die. Vriska will die. You’re going to meet the troll behind this – his name is Kankri. There’s another troll named Nepeta who’ll come by later with food. You can trust her – she’s afraid of Kankri and will help us. She’s the one who helped place this note. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** There’s a book that Kankri keeps in his house in a writing desk in the corner of the main room. You need to get it and then take it to Rose. Rose is being held in a building somewhere in this village – Nepeta will know where she is. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** According to Nepeta, Terezi is being held in the cell two down from yours and Vriska is in another building set away from the rest of them.  
  
Don’t tell Vriska about this letter or the book. She didn’t respond well the last time and it ended bad. I don’t know if I can do this again… please keep her safe. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** Hide this under the mat and wait. Get Rose the book and I think we’ll have a chance. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** – June

I tucked the note back under the mat. I had so many questions running through my head. Apparently the others were still alive, and June too! I didn’t know what most of the letter meant, but I had the strong feeling that if I didn’t pay attention I was going to have some extra ventilation holes somewhere.

* * *

I played through the conversation with Kankri like I hadn’t seen the note, and took the opportunity between then and when Nepeta showed up to talk to Terezi.

“Terezi? I know you’re in the room over there and I’m guessing you can hear me. Hit the wall if you can hear me.”

_ Thud. _ This felt familiar, even though I’d never done it before. Deja vu.

“How about once for yes, twice for no – sound okay?”

_ Thud. _

“I don’t know how, but June got a note into my cell and she knows… a lot. Something real weird is happening, and I think we need to be ready to move fast when the time comes. You good to go?”

_ Thud. _

“Seriously? No problems?”

_ Thud-thud. _ Good god that woman was solid. No hesitation at all – just ready to go at the drop of a hat. I loved her so damn much.

* * *

It was a while longer before the troll I assumed was Nepeta showed up and opened the door to my cell. Unkempt hair, short horns, and a soldier’s trench coat. Holding a tray of food. She looked nervous.

“Nepeta?”

She just about dropped the tray but was able to recover her composure. “June told me you’d know who I was but I didn’t believe her.”

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” I said. “I got a note saying that you were helping us and that Rose needs some kind of book that Kankri has.”

Nepeta took a step back, her eyes wide. “No! There’s no way… he’ll kill all of you!”

I had no idea if that was true or not – I figured if he wanted us dead, he’d have already killed us. But also… I didn’t know that I necessarily believed that he’d had nothing to do with the fella in Boston who had been intent on filling us with rifle caliber holes. What I’m saying is there was a lot of information against the idea of him not deciding to bury us all in shallow graves.

“Doll, I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be avoided by not stealing his book. Is it something you can do?”

Nepeta looked down at the floor for what felt like a while – probably only a handful of seconds, but time has a way of expanding when you’re under pressure.

“Yes…” her voice was small, distant. “I can do it. He doesn’t check on the book much and he thinks I don’t know where it is, but June was very specific. I can get it to Rose this afternoon when he goes to check on the progress of the dig.”

I didn’t know what  _ the dig _ was referring to – wasn’t sure I wanted to know. It sounded ominous and in this line of work ominous usually meant potentially lethal. I did, however, like the idea of being able to get the heck out of this place as soon as possible. I already knew everyone was alive – we just needed to stay that way.

* * *

I decided to doze off again, and I had no idea what time it was when I heard the deadbolt slam back and the door was thrown open, waking me with a jolt. I was expecting Nepeta, or maybe Kankri, but instead saw a human – a bearded man with an unfamiliar face. He was holding a shotgun.

“Get the fuck up now, bitch,” he yelled at me. “Kankri wants you and the blind piece of shit in the other room to get your asses to the house right now.”

I didn’t see much choice in the matter, so I stood up and walked out ahead of the yelling man with the gun. Outside my room there was a hallway that led to two other similar reinforced doors and a single door that led, I figured, outside.

He stopped to open the door to Terezi’s cell. It was pitch dark inside – the bastards had been keeping her in the dark! She was blind, true, but still… it felt cruel. I didn’t know how well her enhanced senses would work in the dark.

“Blind bitch, get the fuck up!” The man yelled. He certainly had a way with words.

Terezi stumbled out of the dark room. She looked disoriented, but as soon as she smelled me standing there, her face lit up.

“Jane! Oh thank god!” She walked forward to hug me, but the yelling man stepped in front of her.

“Fucking try it!” He yelled – of course he yelled. “I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

He marched us out of the far door and the cool night air hit me and woke me all the way up. It was dark out and the moon was rising, giving off a pale white glow that made the shadows stand out in a way that only added to the mounting fear I was feeling in my guts.

Under armed guard, we walked towards the house where Kankri waited.

* * *

There were more guards outside – human and troll. I didn’t even bother to try to place them beyond the fact that there were a bunch of them and they were all armed. Most had shotguns or rifles, with a couple holding revolvers and one with a Tommy gun. The door to the house was open, so we were led straight in.

The main room was decorated with an assortment of furniture that I figured was supposed to look quaint and charming. Right now it felt forced and dishonest. In the very middle of the room were a series of four wooden chairs. The far two were occupied with Vriska and June – the two were linking hands and didn’t appear to be tied up in any way. What would be the point, after all? There were at least three more guards, all humans, in the room with guns, in addition to the yelling, swearing fella that brought us in.

Terezi and I were muscled into our chairs. I looked around the room, but didn’t see Rose. I couldn’t imagine why, but it seemed like they were treating her differently. I did see Nepeta – she was cowering in the corner of the room, nervously looking at everyone else.

In the very front of the room stood Kankri. He had a look of unbridled fury on his face, but when he spoke his voice was as cold as ice.

“Which one of you took it?”

“Took what?!” Vriska was already shouting. “What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“Ms. Serket, if you do not control yourself.” He frowned deeply. “The volume which was contained in my desk in this very room. The volume of forbidden knowledge which has now decided to abscond without the slightest trace of who might be responsible. I come here to engage in my nightly studies and lo… the book is gone!”

He balled up a fist and punched the pine wall of the room with a loud  _ whap _ . If it hurt, he showed no sign of it.

“Where is Rose?” Vriska again. If she didn’t stop, she was gonna get herself shot.

Kankri glared at her. “That is none of your concern! Ms. LaLonde is under secure guard. Nepeta checked on her just this afternoon and she will  _ not _ be allowed out again! For now, I would suggest you all concentrate on how to preserve your own lives in light of this new development.”

He paced back and forth along the wall, then wheeled to look at Vriska and June again.

“You were both in here today. You both had the opportunity… but which of you had the motive?!”

This was sounding increasingly like Kankri had no idea what he was talking about. I was just hoping that Vriska would have the good sense to keep her mouth sh–

“What?!” So much for that thought. “How the fuck would we do that?! We’ve been locked up or under guard the whole time we’ve been here!”

Kankri stopped pacing. He strode over to where Vriska was seated and punched her in the face. She yelped and fell back.

“Do not  _ fucking _ talk to me like that, you goddamn  _ bitch _ !” And I was seeing a Kankri that I knew was always there – the real person that the florid words and calm facade hid most of the time.

Vriska reeled back and I could hear her crying. She was shaking in place, huddled over, whispering  _ no, no, no _ over and over. I remembered what she’d told me once about her experiences with Gamzee.

“SHUT THE FUCK  _ UP _ !” Kankri shouted. He dashed to the writing desk in the corner and picked up a familiar-looking revolver… the bastard had  _ my _ revolver! He was back in front of Vriska and pointing the gun at her head.

“You shut the fuck up, you stupid goddamn fucking bitch or I will fucking kill you and then I will kill your stupid fucking bitch of a girlfriend.”

I heard June break out into a barely-controlled sob. Vriska was still rocking forward in the chair. I had no idea how far gone she was or how easily she could control herself when a deeply unstable Kankri was pointing a gun at her. I saw him pull back the hammer on the revolver, heard the  _ click _ as it moved to a single feather’s pressure on the trigger to set off.

And there was nothing I could do. Even if I got to Kankri before he shot Vriska, he was just going to gun the rest of us down. Or the goons in the room would do it for him. There was no way any of us were getting out of this alive.

I felt the last bit of hope drain out of me – we had failed. Whatever this book was supposed to do for us, it hadn’t worked. June’s note…

The note…

My mind started racing. She’d been here for a few days, but we hadn’t. How could she possibly know all of those things.

Because Nepeta told her.

But Nepeta hadn’t known where the book was.

I looked closely at June – she was crying because of course she was. Because her lover was about to be shot…

But that didn’t feel right. Something about it didn’t quite add up – the way her body language was – it was so hard…

So hard to think…

“What the fuck is she  _ waiting _ for?!” Terezi hissed under her breath. And I realized…

She was talking about  _ June… _

Kankri was shaking with rage and Vriska was still rocking back and forth and June was crying. But she wasn’t losing control.

_ Because she knows what’s coming next  _ was the exact thought I had.

I heard Terezi hiss at me again. “Hold on, now!” And without even thinking about it, I clutched my chair as tightly as I could.

There is a certain point where you can’t really say you’re  _ hearing _ something so much as simply  _ feeling _ it. The sensation overwhelms your ability to even process anything else. The noise in that moment was like that – a sound so indescribably  _ vast _ that it jumped right out of my ability to even properly describe it.

And with the noise, there was a flare of purple light and I could feel myself moving as a wave of  _ energy  _ like nothing I’d ever experienced picked me up, turned me sideways, and threw me violently to the floor.

As I struggled to get to my feet, I could feel something else coming closer. Something  _ other _ that had turned its once-sleeping eye on us and it was aware and it was awake and it was so very  _ hungry _ .


	17. Other

Glass and fragments of pine rained down as the windows blew out of Kankri’s lodge. I’d hit the ground hard, but luckily my head had avoided the impact so I was at least coherent enough to tuck into myself and avoid the worst of the fragments as they shot through the air and skittered over the floorboards.

Kankri had lost the revolver when we’d all been knocked sideways. One of his hired goons had dropped their rifle, one had somehow managed to hold onto their shotgun  _ and  _ stay upright, and the last one was lying on the floor with a pool of blood starting to expand from a gaping wound in his head where he’d struck a table. Yelling, swearing fella was on his back clutching his shotgun and looking extremely disoriented.

I was still so out of it I could barely see straight. I was basically useless.

Terezi, however, was not. I saw her dart forward, leap into the air, and dive forward to grab my revolver where it had fallen. I had no idea how someone with no ability to see was able to do that, but it was gosh-darn amazing to watch.

She rolled into a crouch and fired a single shot at the standing guard, hitting him in the face. Blood sprayed on the wall and he was down like a sack of rocks.

“Nepeta, get the gun!” She yelled out. I saw a fast-moving blur as Nepeta ran over and picked up the shotgun.

Sweary was still on the ground, but he was about to not be. Terezi must’ve heard him moving, because he next two shots connected with his gut and head, respectively. I’ll admit I felt a lot of satisfaction at that one.

The last guard simply turned and ran out of the room. So at least someone had some common sense. Kankri was reeling around, trying to find his footing. Terezi reached him in three bounding steps and slammed the heavy revolver into the side of his head. There was a surprisingly wet  _ crunch _ and he keeled over and fell like a sack of rocks, hitting the wooden floor hard.

“We need to get the fuck out of here!” Terezi was yelling even as she bent over to help Vriska and June up off the floor. I had regained enough composure to retrieve the bolt-action rifle that the one guard had dropped before fleeing. Thinking better of it, I handed the rifle off to Terezi and grabbed the shotgun from the floor next to Sweary’s body. Terezi checked the chamber and grunted, satisfied that everything was in order.

I was still having trouble standing up straight, and it looked like June was sharing my problem. Vriska seemed – weirdly unaffected. It was like she was running on nothing but pure spite now. She walked over, kicked Kankri’s still form once, and looked around quickly for a gun. I guess she didn’t find anything, because she walked back over to June and put an arm around the swaying woman, helping her keep her balance.

“Okay, people, last train is leaving the fucking station.” Terezi walked forward to the door, followed by the rest of us, with Nepeta bringing up the rear.

As we stepped out into the moonlit night, I immediately saw the eerie purple glow that was cast over everything. It seemed to be emanating from the sky itself, and I found all my hairs standing on end for reasons I couldn’t explain.

More guards were outside, mostly disoriented. Some had already fled.

The Tommy gun guard was a troll who must’ve had a hearty constitution, because he raised his iron like he was going to throw down. A quick shot to the head from Terezi’s rifle fixed that, and now Vriska had a Tommy gun to play with.

Cycling the bolt with a smoothness that I found almost disturbing, Terezi wheeled and placed another shot into a guard’s chest before she had the chance to level the shotgun she was holding at us. A follow-up to the head a second later put her out of whatever misery she would’ve experienced.

“Does anyone have a fucking clue where we’re going?” Terezi yelled out. Nepeta ran out in front of us.

“I do! I know where to go to get out! But we need to get to Rose first!”

I looked up at the purple-lit sky. As I watched, there was a strange flash like lightning coming from below the treeline and a loud  _ crack _ through the air. Another wave of energy – much less powerful than the one that had knocked us down but leaving the same sensation – blasted through the air.

In the distance the sound of gunfire sounded off, followed by another  _ flash-crack _ and then the gunfire went dead silent.

“I have a feeling Rose is gonna meet us at the exit,” I said.

This, along with another round of  _ gunfire-flash-crack-silence _ seemed to satisfy Nepeta, and she ran ahead for us to follow.

Calling it  _ silence _ wasn’t exactly right though. After every time the light flashed, there was this low humming noise that seemed to grow to greater and greater intensity. The light became more and more strange. I say it was  _ purple  _ because that’s the closest I can think of to put it into words. In reality, it seemed to be a color that didn’t actually exist. A strangely pearlescent shade that defied existence itself.

Most of the villagers we encountered were running for their lives now, or running towards the large building I could see in the distance whenever the light allowed. Some kind of shelter or something… it wasn’t important. We kept running.

June got her legs back and Vriska let her go so that she could actually use the Tommy gun. Her timing was fantastic, because we ran into a nasty-looking human who decided he was going to stop us from leaving.

“Get back right the fuck now!” He yelled, waving a pistol at us.

Without a word, Vriska fired the Tommy gun and the man dropped without a sound. We kept running.

As we were making our way to the final stretch of clear ground, I looked back and saw Rose in the distance.

At least… I thought it was her. She was surrounded by a swirling haze the same color that was lighting up the sky. She waved her hands and it moved, coalescing and dispersing and re-forming all around her like electric mist. She was moving fast – too fast – and coming straight towards us.

I watched as a group of trolls and humans ran up to her with guns. They fired, but nothing seemed to happen. And Rose waved a hand.

The light flared so brightly that I had to turn my eyes away, and the thunderous  _ crack _ sounded. When I was able to look again, the attackers were gone. The low hum got a bit louder.

We stood there, fixed to the spot, and waited as Rose approached us. She got closer and closer, the terrifying hum seeming to follow with her. When she was just a few yards away, I saw her face – she was terrified.

“We need to run… it’s coming…” She managed to stammer out this and no more. The light around her vanished as if someone had switched an electric bulb off and Rose collapsed in a heap on the ground. I ran over, putting my hand to her neck.

“She’s still alive – help me carry her!” I yelled. Vriska tossed the Tommy Gun and ran over to grab Rose’s legs. I hoisted her under the shoulders, leaving my own shotgun behind. Together, we were able to carry her without a great deal of difficulty.

The low humming wasn’t getting quieter. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder incredibly fast.

“We need to leave! NOW!” June sounded like she was about to panic. “It’s coming!”

I didn’t stop to ask what  _ it _ was or what any of this meant, I simply helped Vriska haul Rose with us the rest of the way to the train tunnel. We barreled inside and kept moving as fast as we could. The hum was behind us now, along with the weird light, but it was getting brighter and louder and my head was starting to hurt badly.

When we got to the other side of the tunnel, beyond the hills that concealed the unnamed village from prying eyes, we stopped to take a short breather. I could still faintly hear the hum and the glow was visible beyond the trees, but the area around us was quiet and lit only by the moon. It didn’t exactly feel  _ safe _ , but it felt safe enough to stop for a minute.

I helped set Rose down on the dirt and walked over to Terezi. She was visibly shaking.

“Jane…” She dropped the rifle to the ground and fell to her knees. I bent down and wrapped my arms around her. “There’s… there’s  _ something _ back there. Something  _ huge _ .”

I looked out over the hills, beyond the tunnel…

And I could almost make it out. A shadowed form rising up above the trees, so large that we were as ants to it.

Terezi was digging her nails into my arm. “Oh god… Jane… please don’t let it see us… please don’t let it see us!”

All of a sudden, I wanted to scream. Somehow… somehow I felt like that would be the worst thing to do.

So I sat there, holding Terezi close, and I watched. I watched the shadows dance among the light, which had now transcended my ability to describe it. I watched the light grow in intensity until it was almost painful to look at, even from this distance. I heard the low hum rise and change and become something  _ else _ . Terezi’s face twisted into a grimace and she put her hands over her ears, trying desperately to block the noise out. I looked over and saw June sitting on the ground, her face wide and staring – looking back at the unnamed village.

Looking back at the place where Dunwich had once been. Lore-haunted Dunwich, the city that had disappeared into the ground.

And I didn’t know how I knew that. I had never heard the name  _ Dunwich _ before in my life.

But maybe… I felt like I had heard it before. In some vague way… in some…

_ In some other version of my life. _

These thoughts screamed in my mind – they became so much I couldn’t bear it. I saw things racing through there – people and places and things I knew I’d never seen. Generations living and dying and uncovering dark secrets. Secrets that were buried. Secrets that had been unearthed.

The light flared – the sound rose to its crescendo –

And the switch went off and everything was dark, and silent.

And in the distance, I could smell burning pine and what I thought smelled vaguely… of burning meat.

Terezi was crying next to me, shaking and weeping into my chest where she’d pressed herself. She held her nose against the smell.

“Those people… all those people…” She muttered it to herself and shook her head as if trying to clear something from it. And I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the people living in the unnamed village or the people who’d lived in Dunwich, the village I had no right to know anything about… yet still did.

I held her as closely as I could. Held her until the shivering stopped and the sobbing turned to gentle weeping turned to silence. Only then did I let my embrace slacken and push myself to my feet again.

Vriska and June were on the ground as well, near Rose’s unconscious body. June was looking down at the ground now. In the pale moonlight she looked drawn-out and hollow.

I heard her mutter to herself. It sounded like “It worked that time” but I couldn’t be sure.

Slowly, resignedly, we picked ourselves up and carried Rose back to the car. Once we were all safely inside, Vriska stepped behind the wheel and began to drive. I leaned my head over onto Terezi’s shoulder, closed my eyes, and fell into a dreamless sleep.


	18. Narrative Contrivance

**North End, Boston**

I’d slept most of the way into Boston. Vriska had driven slowly but steadily and we’d entered the city sometime during the night – from the moon I was guessing it was probably still before midnight, at least.

After a brief discussion in the car, the others had apparently agreed that the thing to do would be to go talk to Dirk Strider – we understood that he was the acting head of the Boston Council and would probably appreciate being told about the strange death cult an hour and a half north of Boston that had apparently just vanished in a supernatural incident of immense proportion.

I doubted we’d put it like that. Maybe just explain it away as a fire. All those pine buildings were basically tinderboxes, after all.

He would also surely be grateful to know that Porrim Maryam was not, in fact, insane. It seemed that the same influences that had been tormenting myself and the others had also been affecting her – I had a feeling that was going to change.

We pulled up outside the Social Club and Vriska parked the car. She took a heavy breath.

“I can do this by myself if you want,” she said. “You can all just wait here.”

I shook my head. “Forget it, we’ll all go.”

We started to get out – all except Rose, who stayed seated.

“I… I’m going to stay here.”

I didn’t ask why – didn’t feel like I needed to. She’d definitely earned a bit of a break.

So we left Rose in the car and the rest of us walked in through the same doors we’d been in several times before. No one here – everything was unlocked. But the lights were on upstairs, so I was guessing Dirk was here. Clock in the bar said it was around eleven at night. It felt later, but I wasn’t going to complain. We could get a damn drink after.

There was no guard by the back door and it was unlocked too. Dirk was pretty confident about his ability to keep himself safe. He was a big fella, sure, but that seemed careless.

Surely enough, Dirk was in his (and it was his now, wasn’t it?) office. The desk was the same one that Porrim had used – the place had been cleaned up and Dirk was sitting there toying idly with a pocket knife. A glass of some alcohol was sitting in front of him – he looked tired. He also, strangely enough, didn’t look surprised to see us. Honestly though, I doubted he was the kind of man who ever looked surprised.

“What are y’all doing here?” He asked, a bit of a southern accent of some kind poking through his normally flawless regionless dialect. “Y’all look like  _ shit _ .” He laughed, then looked directly at Nepeta. “And who the fuck is this?”

Nepeta looked confused, but she didn’t say anything – she shook her head and Dirk shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

Vriska walked right up to the desk and slammed her hands down in front of him – he jumped.

“Listen you shit,” she growled. “There is an entire town full of fucking death cultists an hour north of here. You want to know what all the weird cult shit is about… it’s about the fucking  _ cult _ you have poking around!”

Dirk raised an eyebrow. “That’s absurd.”

“Fuck you,” Vriska shot back – I was just sitting back and watching the exchange like a dang baseball game. “They’ve got their posters and stuff all over town. Down where June works for the church. The entire town of Seaward Vale, as far as we can tell. You want to make sure the Council isn’t threatened? Get Porrim back and get some of your boys to go roust those pieces of shit.”

Dirk looked at Vriska for a second, then shook his head. “Porrim can’t come back. She tried to hang herself just tonight. Started screaming about a shadow over the world and wouldn’t stop until they gave her a shot of something strong.”

I interrupted – as uproariously entertaining as this was, it wasn’t getting us anywhere. “She’s right – you need to figure out what you’re going to do because you’ve got some very bad folks hanging around. We’re pretty sure a lot of them were killed… in a fire… but there are still gonna be others around.”

I paused, then added – “We really do need to talk to Porrim, by the way.”

“Sure,” Dirk shrugged. “Drive out to the Miskatonic in the morning. I don’t see why that’d be a problem. In the meantime, can you all kindly fuck off and let me drink in peace.”

And that was that, I supposed. We went back down the stairs and out to the car. When we got there, Terezi stopped and looked back.

“Oh fuck this,” she said. “I need a damn drink.”

* * *

There was a bar down the street that was both open and not particularly crowded – basically the perfect combination at this point. All of us went in, even Rose. She looked like she was about to fall over, but she went in anyway.

Inside the bar was… well, it was a bar. Dim lighting, a counter with stools, and a bunch of tables and some booths in the corner. Vriska walked up to the bar, asked for a bottle of the cheapest whiskey they had and six glasses and we all took a seat in the furthest booth.

I didn’t drink like I used to, but I was drinking tonight. We each had a couple glasses of the booze – it was foul, but it was also alcoholic.

Rose was looking especially out-of-sorts. She had her head down and her face was drawn.

“what the fuck happened?” Vriska was, of course, the one to be blunt about it. “Rose… what the fuck  _ was _ that?”

Rose shook her head. “I don’t remember much of it…”

“You want to maybe fucking  _ try _ ?” Vriska poured herself another drink and downed it in one gulp. “We almost fucking  _ died _ out there.”

Vriska, in particular, I thought.

_ Twice _ .

And why the heck did I think  _ that _ of all things? I shook my head as if that was gonna clear it up.

Rose sighed, heavily – she took a sip from her drink and started talking.

Nepeta got me the book that afternoon, just like she was supposed to. I don’t know who originally wrote it – there were no names or anything. I don’t… actually remember much of what was inside. Just that everything got kind of… fuzzy. Not just fuzzy like I couldn’t remember stuff… more like I wasn’t quite existing in the same world as before. And then… everything just kind of went dark. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** I saw things though. Other worlds… places I don’t think people were ever supposed to see. All these strange beings and they looked up to me like I was some kind of god. Towering spires and a chain stretching into the heavens. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** And then all of that went dark and quiet and there was something else… something looming above all of that. Something so vast and horrifying that my mind just kind of shut it out.

The thing above the village – the shadowed monstrosity that stretched into the sky… and then vanished as if it had never been there.

Rose took another drink – this time most of the glass.

There was something there… something buried… or hidden. I don’t know the right word for it. I think my mother knew about it, at least a little bit. I think she was trying to keep those secrets away from the world. To keep Dunwich buried forever. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** I’m scared, to be honest… because I don’t know what that was. Because my mind couldn’t even wrap itself around what was happening. And I feel… like that’s going to be a part of me forever.

Rose shivered and downed the rest of the drink. She went quiet – there might’ve been more to her thoughts, but Rose wasn’t sharing them.

Something else was on my mind though. I leaned over to June.

“June, can I talk to you for a minute. Just you and me.” She nodded and we stood up and walked over to the corner of the bar, outside of hearing range. Well, not outside of Terezi’s hearing range… but I felt like Terezi already knew part of what I was going to talk about.

There wasn’t an easy way to say this, most on account of that it sounded completely crazy.

“You knew what was going to happen before it happened,” I said, plainly. “You knew that Vriska wasn’t going to be shot and you knew that the… whatever the heck it was… was going to happen. How? Rose gets the power to blow up a goddamn village and you… what, you can see the future now?”

June looked down at the floor – I couldn’t quite read her expression. I kind of wished I’d grabbed Terezi to smell out what she was feeling.

“June, come on – I’m not going to tell anyone, I just need to know what the hell is happening!”

She groaned. “I can’t see the future… not exactly. I… oh geez this is gonna sound so insane…”

I actually laughed at that. “June, I just saw a village razed to the ground by a shadow that looked like it was two miles tall. I shared dreams about a place I’d never been to with a troll I’d never met before. You want to tell me about crazy… get in the dang line.”

She smiled. “Okay… but… I didn’t see the future, I lived it.”

That didn’t really make sense – my expression clearly said that it didn’t make any sense, because June drew herself up and tried again.

“Everything was going along and then… Vriska got shot. In the head…” June was starting to cry. “She died.”

I looked over at Terezi and saw that she’d perked her head up slightly. She was hearing this too.

“When she died, I lost it and then… everything kind of… unwound. I was back in the room in Kankri’s house and it was right after you all showed up, I think. But I still remembered everything that had happened. So I knew to tell Nepeta to get the book… except…”

She groaned. “It didn’t work at first. She tried to steal it and Kankri caught her and she got killed, then they just kind of…” Crying was getting worse – I leaned in and put a hand on her shoulder. “They just went in and  _ killed _ everyone.”

Deep breath – she steadied herself. “So… everything went back  _ again _ and that time I knew what to do about the book. So I got the book to Rose and then that thing happened with her, but none of you were there – you were all still locked up. And you all died again, but this time it was because of Rose and she didn’t even mean it!”

She took a gulping breath and it came out as a sob. “So I tried one last time, but this time I made sure to say something to get Kankri to check on his book. I was lucky – he didn’t know who took it, so he called all of you in. Except Rose – I knew he wouldn’t bother with her because he had some kind of special plans for her. But I knew when it was going to happen…”

I looked at Terezi again and she had this  _ of course _ look on her face – she was smiling back at me. It made a lot more sense now.

“I knew that you and Vriska and Terezi would get us out of there. Vriska doesn’t… she doesn’t like to talk about what happened in New York, but I know it was more than what she said.”

June looked at me, and I could see a kind of spark in her eyes – this was a woman who was used to hiding who she was to the world, but never from herself. She saw everything… she knew far more than she let on.

“I know there’s stuff inside her that she… maybe doesn’t like very much. Stuff she’s done… people she’s hurt. But she’s working hard to not be that person. She’s never made me feel unsafe, and I know she’ll do anything to protect me.”

It was true – I remembered it vividly – Meenah Peixes with a knife in her gut and Vriska  _ growling _ at her –  _ “Her name is pronounced June and you’re a piece of shit!” _

I locked eyes with June. “I think you’re right about that.”

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m scared of what all of this means. I feel like there’s this…  _ thing _ inside of me. I don’t even know where it came from, and I’m not even sure how I control it. I don’t even know if it’ll work again. It feels like something I shouldn’t have… that no one should have.”

She was crying again. “I don’t want it. Even if it’s something I can do whenever I want, this isn’t right. I was so scared when Vriska died… everything felt broken… I couldn’t help myself that first time. But…”

June paused and took a deep, halting breath. “What if I get used to it? What if I start changing things because I just… feel like it. What if I start hurting people? I can’t do that.”

She shook her head.

“It was so hard to just be  _ me _ , you know? So hard to be who I really am… I don’t want to start becoming someone else. I don’t want to hurt the people… the person I love.”

That was something I could relate to. Maybe not the ability to literally change the past so much… but the part about hurting the people you cared about. That was something I was fairly well acquainted with the concept of.

“Look, June,” I said. “I know Vriska cares about you more than pretty much anything. She’ll do anything she can to keep you safe and make sure you’re happy. If you don’t want… whatever this is… to be a part of you, then I think she’ll do whatever she can to help you keep it in check.”

“That’s what scares me the most… I don’t even know if that’s possible. I wasn’t really  _ controlling _ it before – I just kind of  _ did _ it like it was something I always knew how to do but never realized before.”

I shrugged – I was so tired that even this kind of conversation wasn’t phasing me. “Maybe it was being close to Dunwich?”

The name… the name I’d known without knowing why. That was starting to make a lot more sense now, in light of what June told me. I wondered what other dark secrets I’d once known.

“Maybe…” June looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s it. In that case, I need to be far away from this place.”

She went silent again, and it didn’t really seem like she wanted to keep talking, so I suggested we move back to the table. The bottle of whiskey had run dry and Nepeta was stacking the empty glasses on top of each other. We wisely agreed that we should call it a night.

* * *

**Charlestown, Massachusetts**

I guess trolls process alcohol differently than humans, because Vriska had probably had the most to drink of any of us, and she was completely fine driving back to the townhouse that she and June shared just across the river from Boston proper. The place was huge and I found myself wondering just how well Vriska had done for herself in the whole “crime” gig. Well enough, I imagined.

It was well after midnight by the time we arrived, so Vriska showed Terezi and me to a spare bedroom, told us there were robes in the drawer, and promptly went to show Nepeta and Rose to their rooms and, presumably, pass out for several hours.

The room was small, but it actually had a bed in the middle instead of a reed mat, and that was definitely an upgrade from our last accommodations.

Before I could really take stock of the room, Terezi had pretty much tackled me. We were back against the wall and she was… crying. A lot.

“Oh god I thought you were gonna fucking die!” I was never used to this. Terezi was like a piece of hard, brittle stone – she was tough, but when she broke she  _ shattered. _ I put my arms around her waist and nuzzled into her hair.

“I’m not dead… we’re not dead… and… oh god we smell  _ awful _ .”

She laughed at that, and I was glad.

“I think there’s a bathroom attached to the room.”

She was right – Vriska had apparently spared no expense and had a small room attached to the bedroom with a tub in the center. I went inside and ran the water until it was hot and the steam was filling the small bathroom. I turned back from the tub once it was full…

Terezi was standing there, naked, smiling at me. This wasn’t a new sight to me – we’d been together for years and I’d seen her naked more times than I could count – but that didn’t make it any less… I don’t know, the words are failing a bit. The gal looked darn good, is where I’m going with this.

I traced my eyes up and down the gray skin I’d seen so many times – along the curves and the dips and little marks on the skin – along the scars. She’d told me about them once – the first time I’d seen her body, which had been under  _ considerably _ less appealing circumstances. That hurt my heart a little every time I saw those marks – that someone had been so willing to be so cruel to the gal I loved.

I took my own clothing off and stowed it neatly on a chair in the bedroom. I wasn’t joking before – we both smelled pretty bad after having been back and forth without a bath or change of clothes for several days now. The haunting odor of blood and gunpowder and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on wasn’t helping anything either. It must’ve been a nightmare for Terezi with her heightened sense of smell.

She wrinkled her nose, even as she was smiling at seeing me undress. “Okay, we’re doing the bath thing first. No question… we both smell like shit.”

I didn’t know if she was being literal, but I generally agreed. The tub was large enough for both of us to fit, so I lowered myself in and Terezi splashed into the water right in front of me. She leaned back onto me and we both sat there and soaked up the heat of the water. It felt so good to just be relaxing for once. I wasn’t even going to wash right away.

Terezi pressed herself back into me and sighed – I reached out and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her back into my chest and eliciting a kind of  _ squeak  _ when I placed a hand on one of her breasts. This close I could feel her breathing against me.

“I can hear your heart,” she said, softly. “I… was afraid I wasn’t ever going to hear that again.”

Her head was back against my shoulder and one of her velvet-covered horns tickled my nose – I kissed it and she giggled.

“You can be pretty goddamn cute for such a tough dame, Jane.”

I hugged her and leaned my face towards hers, leaning in to kiss her neck. I think that, more than anything, we both wanted to be comforted right then. It had been hell for the past few days, and we were just now starting to feel safe again.

“I guess…” Terezi started to talk and trailed off for a second. “I never gave it a lot of thought, but we all came from somewhere other than Earth. I was one of the first Alternians hatched on Earth, but we didn’t even originally come from the same… I don’t know… the same universe? If we were out there, what other kind of crazy shit is?”

She sighed again and pushed her head up against my neck – her horn tickled me again and I kissed it again.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” I said. “Whatever it is… that’s what it is. Worrying about it doesn’t change any of that, and we’ll deal with it when it comes.”

“I wish I could be like that – I really try, but I keep worrying about things. All the different possible angles… it’s hard for me.”

“I know,” I said quietly, talking into her ear. “I know it’s hard… and I know you can’t let this just drop. We’ll follow up tomorrow… once we’ve had some sleep and something to eat.”

You know, there’s probably a good bit of innuendo in that last thing I said. I know there is, as a matter of fact. But that’s not really any of your business.

It felt like we were working through some stuff, Terezi and I. Days of frustration and fear and confusion – the idea that either one of us could see the other one snuffed out before our very eyes.

When all was said and done – and I mean that mostly in the sense of “done” and a lot less of “said” – I will say that we did eventually fall asleep. Tangled up together, still naked. Smelling a lot less like four-day-old dirt and a lot more like lavender soap and newly-minted sweat.

When sleep finally overtook me, I wish I could say that it was restful. I wish I could say that I didn’t dream.

I wish I could say it… but it would be a lie.


	19. Awareness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains discussions of suicide as well as major character deaths.

This really is an inconvenience. Even if it had turned out the way I expected, which it certainly did not. I wasn’t expecting someone else to be so… involved.

It was hard to pin this down – I was clearly dreaming. It had the same feeling as the dreams I’d been having so frequently before, but something had changed. It felt less like a premonition… more like I was listening in on something I wasn’t supposed to be hearing.

It’s not like I can’t make this work. It’s still new… I’m still getting used to it. But she is too! She’s afraid of what she is, but I’m not afraid of what I am. That’s the difference! That’s what makes this work!   
  
FUCK! I can’t believe I even have to do all this. He was such a fucking IDIOT to try to play it like that. Well now he’s fucking dead and I’m not sorry. Even if I could go back, I wouldn’t. He deserved it.

I almost wanted to call out to whoever this was… almost… but I also felt like that would be a mistake. This wasn’t quite a dream… there was something wrong here.

Wait… who’s there? Oh hell no. This isn’t going to be a thing – you don’t get to spy on me like this and then just carry on about your merry way in the morning! Fuck that shit!

I could feel something  _ reaching _ inside of my head… and I  _ screamed _ .

* * *

I woke up the next morning feeling groggy but glad that I hadn’t dreamed. Terezi had already been up before me and I could smell something downstairs cooking. I stumbled out of bed, put on one of the robes Vriska had talked about, and walked down to the kitchen. Vriska and June were cooking ham on a skillet with the help of Nepeta, who kept trying to steal bits of it. Terezi was sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, wearing the same kind of robe I was.

“Morning – sleep okay,” she said with a very obvious wink. I blushed and went to sit down with her.

“Okay, people,” Vriska said. “So we’re going to the asylum today.”

And that was a very normal way to start the day off. Of course, normal was something I’d left behind ages ago.

“I agree,” I said. “Whatever happened with Porrim… I think it was directly connected to what happened to us last night. We should at least talk to her.”

I grabbed the mug of coffee from in front of Terezi and took a long sip before she could protest.  And how do you expect that talking to Por– 

“Oh god, how do you drink that without sugar?!”

Terezi shrugged and grinned, taking the mug back. I shook my head.

“Honestly,” Vriska said, turning away from the sizzling ham. “I don’t think Dirk was telling us the truth about Porrim. Maybe she tried to hang herself and maybe she didn’t. But something about this all feels suspicious. Like a loose thread that’s still tickling us.”

I was inclined to agree – my sense for this case might’ve been off from the beginning, but I still had a strong sen–  –why would you think that there’s anything here beyo–  –se that there were unanswered questions still out there. Maybe Porrim knew something, maybe she didn’t… it wouldn’t hurt to find out.

* * *

**Miskatonic, Massachusetts**

It was just me, Terezi, Vriska, and June. Rose had asked to stay behind in the townhouse and Nepeta had seemed all too eager to stay behind with her. I wasn’t going to object – getting four people into the asylum without drawing a horrific amount of attention already seemed like a tall order, and I wasn’t going to make it even worse trying to add folks that didn’t even want to be there in the first place.

We were back inside the austere main lobby of the Miskatonic Asylum – a place I’d desperately hoped to never see again. When this was over, I was planning to leave and never come anywhere near this place for the foreseeable future.

“We’re here to see Aranea Serket and Porrim Maryam – working a case with Pyrope and Crocker,” Vriska accentuated the verbal flourish with a full ten-spot on the front desk. The attendant took it and narrowed his eyes.

“Serket’s on isolation right now. It’ll be a minute. You can talk to Maryam but it’s only one of you at a time allowed in there. You gotta leave any weapons here.”

We knew the deal. We handed everything over at the desk and went with the orderly – a different, but equally physically imposing man than the last time we were there. I was getting the sense that the asylum prioritized being able to manhandle patients and basically nothing else in terms of their staff selection.

It was familiar enough from the last time that I knew where we we go–  –and what is it you think you’re going to accomplish heading down here like this? Didn’t you learn anything from New York about leaving everything the fuck alo–  –ing, at least in a general sense.

When we got to Porrim’s cell – my experience in the unnamed village didn’t let me see it any differently – the orderly stopped and looked at us.

“Only one,” he said, sternly. The others looked at me. Guess that was my cue, so I raised a hand and stepped forward. The orderly opened the door and let me inside.

Porrim was sitting in the middle of the barren room, cross-legged on the padded floor, staring at the wall. She turned as she heard the door close behind me – I couldn’t tell if the expression on her face was happy at seeing a familiar face or distressed for having to be here in the first place. A bit of both, I supposed.

At this point, Jane knew that she needed to turn around and go back home. She’d already run the case to the ground – she’d uncovered every last secret and everyone involved was dead anyway. There was nothing left for her to do, and she had a chance to go home and be free of thi– 

I had a weird sensation in my head. A sudden sense of something foreign inside my mind… a kind of tickle in the back of my head.

“Porrim,” I said. I wasn’t going to bother with that  _ Ms. Maryam _ nonsense. Not anymore. “We need to talk.”

She looked at me and said nothing.

“I’ve been to the tunnel you see in your dreams. I’ve been to the village where those missing people ended up. I’ve seen what they all worship… the shadow over everything.”

Her eyes were pure fear–

and Jane knew that she wasn’t going to get anything useful out of Porrim. Whatever had happened, it was something that couldn’t be reversed. It couldn–

–I wasn’t sure what to make of the expression, but she looked terrified.

“The shadow is gone,” I said. “We saw it vanish. The village is ash by now… all those people are dead. The good ones… the bad ones… they’re all gone and there’s nothing we could’ve done about it. But you’re free now.”

“No…” Porrim’s voice was shaking and quiet. She sounded nothing like the person I’d first met in Boston. “No… not free. Not anymore.”

It wasn’t wise to ask too many questions, Jane knew. Questions had answers. Answers led to more questions and the answers to those questions… they were often the sorts of things that could never be un-known. The kind of answers that drove you to madness–

I looked closely at Porrim’s face – at her throat where the rope had left a deep green bruise. I winced without meaning to – given what I’d seen in the last few days, I could understand how she’d gotten to that point.

“What do you mean? Kankri is dead.”

Porrim laughed – she actually looked me in the eyes and laughed. “Kankri? You honestly believe that he– 

If she had any more to say, it was choked off as she started to sob. All Jane could see was a broken woman, unable to even get her head above water anymo– 

–she finished, looking down at the floor. I hadn’t caught that last bit. My head was starting to hurt badly.

“I know Aranea was there,” I said. “Vriska too… technically. She was a tiny… uh… grub? They were taken out of the village before it burned the first time. I’m not sure by who… I was meaning to ask Aranea if she even knew.”

Porrim laughed again. “Like it even matters. You know tha–  She looked down again, unable to continue any further. Jane realized that this was a pointless exercise. Why bother with any of this bullshit when she could just go home with Terezi. Back to their life in New York. Back to their cases. Even June and Vriska could go home – everyone that was involved in this case was dead or irrelevant.

Oh God why did my head hurt so much?! I kept trying to pay attention to what Porrim was saying – trying to angle around it. She was so convinced that something was still out there. And I supposed that she was right – there were almost certainly members of the Order of the Creator still in Boston, at the very least. Seaward Vale too. They’d need to be rooted out – but with their leader gone and their village a smoking pile of rubble maybe that wouldn’t be so hard.

“Never mind,” I said. “I need to talk to Aranea too. I’ll be back later.”

Porrim looked at me – locked eyes with me – smiled a sad, soft smile. “We’ll see, Jane.”

I walked over and pounded on the door – the orderly let me out and I saw that the others were all looking at me, expectantly. I shook my head.

“I don’t know. She’s not doing great… doesn’t seem to believe it’s really over. I guess this hit her pretty hard.”

Vriska groaned. “This is gonna stir some shit up – she was basically gluing this whole thing together.”

“I dunno,” I said. “Dirk seemed to be pretty level headed. Maybe he can help keep things together for a bit.”

Terezi made a small noise – like she was clearing her throat. I looked at her and she was looking up at me. I got closer and she put a hand out to pull me in, putting her lips near my ear and whispering.

“You remember that smell I was telling you about – that weird smell I couldn’t quite place.”

I nodded.

“I smell it here as well… and it was in the village, all over. I think it’s something about the plants or the soil there – something kind of sour and pungent. It was so strong.”

That made me nervous – I supposed it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility to think that one of the Order had been here, but it still made me nervous. But I didn’t feel like Terezi was done.

“There’s something else though,” she whispered. “There was one other place I noticed it… one other person, specifically… I smelled the same sc–  Terezi was being utterly ridiculous. She knew as well as anyone that the only members of the Order still left behind would be mere followers. With Kankri dead, there was nothing truly left – merely a body without a head, waiting to die. Jane knew this better than anyone else.

“Gosh darn! My head is hurting!” I exclaimed, stepping back from Terezi, who was looking confused. “I don’t know why. Can we just go talk to Aranea and get the heck out of here?!”

Vriska and June looked at each other, their faces betraying confusion and worry. Terezi put a hand on my arm.

“Are you okay, Jane?”

Jane was fine, of course. She wanted to leave the asylum, which was only natural, but if she ju–

“I’m okay,” I said. “It’s just… I feel like crap. When we figure out what we need to figure out, we can leave.”

“Okay,” Terezi said, looking closely at me. “But what about Porrim? Did she say anything else useful? I know she’s not doing well – that was implied. But what the hell does she know about any of this, if anything?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped back. I was starting to feel defensive – I was telling them everything already! “She just… doesn’t know much. I think she was more in the dark than I thought.”

I turned and waved to the orderly. “Can you take us to Aranea Serket now? Today, if it’s not too much trouble!”

The orderly grunted and we turned the hall and walked toward the cell where Aranea had been before. As we were rounding the corner the short doctor from the other day nearly collided with us. He muttered an apology and kept walking quickly down the hall.

“What the fuck was his problem?” Vriska asked, looking angry. “Jackass.”

We got to the door and the orderly opened it, revealing a darkened room inside.

“One at a time – you know the drill,” he said. I nodded and–  Jane knew that this wasn’t necessary. The last time she’d talked to Aranea the troll had barely been able to form a coherent thought. Now Jane was expecting her to provide useful information? That was absurd. If she had any sense, she’d tell the guard to close the door and walk ba–

“I know the drill,” I responded. And I stepped through the door into the dark cell. There was enough light to make out the hunched form of Aranea Serket sitting in the middle of the cell. But something felt off about this… something was wrong.

I walked closer – she didn’t turn to respond to me. Closer… I was close enough to touch her shoulder…

She didn’t move. Didn’t respond.

I saw her eyes… open… glassy…

She was dead.

Jane screa–  –I didn’t scream – didn’t lose my composure because this wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen and something felt incredibly wrong here. There was a discarded syringe by the body. I had no doubt that if the light was better, I would be able to see the marks on her arms where the injection was made. She was still warm – this couldn’t have happened more than a few minutes ago. I thought about the doctor practically running down the hallway.

Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong. I stood up and ran to the door –

Jane just couldn’t keep her fucking nose out of shit she didn’t belong in, and now she saw that the orderly was holding Terezi back. Vriska and June were standing there, motionless, because standing across from them–

–I saw Dirk Strider holding a Colt pistol that looked very much like Terezi’s.

“I knew it, you fucker!” Terezi was yelling. “Jane! I told you I smelled it on this bastard! I wasn’t sure the first time because he was covering it up with fucking aftershave but… god fucking damn it!”

My head was still hurting. Dirk was standing there, a big grin on his face, waving the gun.

“Ms. Crocker I’m gonna need you to step right on over by y’all’s friends.” That accent poking out again. Something about his voice… I couldn’t place it…

Jane didn’t worry about trying to place Dirk’s voice, because that wasn’t important right now.

“God  _ damn _ that is exhausting right now,” Dirk said, dropping back out of the Texas accent by the end. “I gave you all every opportunity to leave this alone.”

“Are insane?” I was almost screaming at him. “Do you have any idea what we saw in that village?! Porrim isn’t crazy – she saw the same thing we did only we saw it in real life!”

Dirk shook his head. “I fucking  _ know  _ that, you fools. I funded his ridiculous operation. I knew about his plans to try to bring about the end of the world and make a new world and all that nonsense.”

That was news to me – but still… it had that same faint  _ familiar _ quality as other things. So maybe I’d learned it before June changed everything. The point seemed almost academic right then.

“So what do you want from us?” I asked.

“I don’t want anything from any of you!” He snapped back. “I wanted you to all go back to your homes and lives and leave me alone.”

“You’re hiding something.” It was Terezi – she was glaring – she was  _ furious _ . “You were in that village a lot… enough to smell like it. Porrim didn’t know about this, and you must’ve been on good terms with Kankri. What the fuck were you two  _ doing _ ?!”

Dirk laughed at Terezi and clicked his tongue. “Kankri was a useful fool. He dug up lots of things, but the only thing that mattered to me was the book.”

I wasn’t following – I knew the book was powerful, because it’d had something to do with Rose’s powers. But that had seemed more like losing control than anything else. Why would he want to do that?

“No, you fool,” Dirk said. “Not like whatever nonsense happened to Rose. The book held other secrets.”

I stared. I hadn’t said that part out loud. He was reading my mind.

“Don’t be banal.” Dirk looked right at me. “How’s your head been feeling, Ms. Crocker?”

It was hurting – a lot. Still hurting. Hurting ever since that morning, and it kept coming and going and getting worse.

We are all in control of our own narratives – our own lives. That was a thought that Jane Crocker had given considerable weight to.

Dirk was smiling at me. He looked like he’d just struggled to lift something heavy, but he was smiling. I wasn’t sure why… but something in that smile was scaring the ever-loving crap out of me.

“I don’t doubt that what Kankri discovered has the ability to do what he claims. To destroy and re-make the world. To gain the power of gods or whatever other nonsense. But I don’t want to destroy and re-make the world – not the way he wants to. I’d rather make some more… subtle changes. I like this world quite a lot. I like my place inside of it. I just feel like there are certain things that could be done to smooth it over. To make my place more… secure.”

He gestured with the pistol. “The book provided me with some advice in that department… and once I opened my mind to it, it was like all the little doors started unlocking one after the other.”

“But the book was destroyed,” I retorted. I actually had no clue if that was true or not.

“Yes, I know you’re bluffing. But even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter. I’ve already learned enough that honing my skills will be simply a matter of practice.”

“You fuck!” Vriska yelled. “What fucking skills?! Threatening women?!”

Dirk laughed. “Hardly. Call it the skill of… narrative adjustment. A subtle form of control – but quite effective. It’s still a process, but I feel confident I’ll get there.”

He smiled again, deep and evil. “Now we get to the part where I give you a choice.” He pointed the pistol at each of us, one after the other.

“I know what June can do. So here’s the two options – either she can roll back to right before you enter the asylum and you will all decide  _ not _ to bother to come in. I will then let you all walk away and go about your lives, providing you leave this general area and never come back.”

“What’s the other choice?” I asked. I already knew the answer to that one – a slug in each of our heads.

“Yes, precisely. A slug in each of your heads! Ms. Crocker you  _ are _ quite sharp. We should’ve hired you a while ago!”

I heard Terezi grunt from behind me, struggling against the orderly’s grip. “He’s lying about something… he’s not going to let us go!”

Dirk looked right at her. “Ah yes, your famous lie-detecting nose. Well, you’re partially right. Honestly, I was only going to kill  _ one _ of you. Does that satisfy your nose for the truth. One… or all. Your choice, June.” He looked right at her, then turned.

“Jane… this is ridiculous!” Terezi continued. “He’s acting like  _ June _ here has made a choice… just looking for a distraction here when all she really needs is to make her decision and we can go!”

That was a real weird way to put it – Terezi sounded strange. An idea was forming in my mind, because Dirk Strider was, in fact, a gigantic coward. He was weak and manipulative, and could only get what he wanted by using the most underhanded tactics he could imagine. He was weak enough that he thought that manipulating a woman like June was an–

–A woman who was more than capable of making up her own mind. Jane was being a foolish piece of sh– 

Terezi bit the orderly’s arm and he yelped. He didn’t release her… but that was never her plan.

There were two gunshots. I looked down to see… nothing.

And on the front of Dirk’s shirt, two red stains were rapidly clouding the fabric. The look on his face was one of complete, utter shock. He looked desperately from me, to Vriska, to Terezi… to June. The woman they hadn’t searched when she came in because… why would they? She was harmless!

June was holding a snub-nosed revolver and shaking. The barrel wasn’t still smoking – that was a bit of a cliche – but it was definitely still warm. She thumbed the hammer back. Her hands were shaking, but she was gripping the revolver tightly and aiming high.

Dirk still had his own pistol, but he could barely lift it now. He stared at June.

“Take it back…” his voice was low, gurgling, with this Texas accent creeping back in.

June shook her head and pulled the trigger.

* * *

We finally walked out of the asylum and into the brilliant sunlight of the clear September day. No one bothered to try to stop us – I think they were too busy panicking about Dirk. June had thrown up… because of course she had. I couldn’t even begin to explain how bad I felt for the gal… she’d done something unspeakable because she probably felt like there was no other choice.

And in the end, she was probably right about that. I had a strong feeling that the one person Dirk definitely planned to kill was the woman who could roll back everything on him. He seemed to have been aware of that, somehow. But in the end, he was still mortal… at least he was when we got to him. Who knew what would’ve happened if we’d actually walked away from it. I didn’t really want to think about it.

I had a feeling that we weren’t going to be hearing about this asylum at all. I didn’t think the local yellow rags would run with the story. I didn’t think the coppers were going to come knocking, expecting answers.

I had a feeling that Miskatonic buried its own. They would let Porrim go, because having her there was a liability and killing her without Dirk there to fill the vacuum was bad for their health. They needed someone to postpone their own extinction, even if just for a little while.

They were bad people. Just as much as the folks in New York had been bad people. Maybe in slightly different ways… but bad all the same.

There was one thing I knew for an absolute certainty – when we got back into Vriska’s car and drove back to Boston, I was never going to see this curse-haunted place ever again… and that was something I could definitely live with.


	20. Other Ways

Mr. Ampora,   
  
I know that you’ve been handling business in New Hampshire for a while now, but I need to call in the favor you owe me. Specifically, I need you to go back to Boston and help Porrim Maryam clean house. She’ll know what that means.   
  
She needs someone who wasn’t on the inside when everything went down this past September. She’s been through a lot… she needs someone she can trust.   
  
-Jane Crocker, PCI

* * *

I was right about Porrim. She was mysteriously returned to the social club. She was alive, but also both deeply traumatized by what she’d experienced and physically exhausted by the ordeal in the hospital. I wrote to Eridan Ampora – he owed me a favor – and asked him to come back. He was, at least, good on his word.

Porrim was hurt, but she was also resilient. Although she became somewhat more reclusive, I had a feeling that this wasn’t due entirely to her dealing with trauma. She had rats in her house, and she had to be careful who she spoke to.

* * *

Ms. Crocker,   
  
This letter is being personally conveyed because I don’t trust it to get to you any other way.   
  
I don’t have the words to thank you for what you did. Dirk was under my nose the whole time and I trusted him. I believed that he was there to help me and I was completely wrong. If you hadn’t shown up when you did – I don’t like to think what would’ve happened.   
  
I know that none of you plan to re-visit Boston, but if you do ever happen to be in the area, consider the resources of the Boston Council completely at your disposal.   
  
I had a lot of work to do here. A lot of investigation and removal of certain elements of the local culture. If you ever find that you need work, please don’t hesitate to reach out.   
  
-Porrim Maryam

* * *

Jane,   
  
I appreciate you not trying to talk June and I out of this. While I appreciate the offer to stay in New York, there’s too many bad memories for both of us there. I think we’re better off making our own way from here on out. I’ve got plenty of money, and I have contacts where we’re going. They say the Alternian community is really growing out West, and I think June was always excited with the prospect of being a cowgirl…   
  
That’s a joke. June doesn’t give a shit about being a cowgirl.   
  
She took it hard, what happened to Dirk. I think she understands that there really wasn’t any other way for it to go down at that point. She was the one they didn’t think would ever kill anyone. I don’t quite get what you were saying about what Dirk was doing, but it sounds like he had a kind of blind spot for her. He figured she was only useful for that thing she can apparently do.   
  
She’s still having nightmares about shooting Dirk, and about the whole… changing the past thing. It’s hard. It’s going to be hard for a while. But we’re going to move and she’s already said she doesn’t want to turn things back ever again. I think she’s scared of all the implications.   
  
I’ll be there for her. I’ve got enough to basically retire on – I already sold the houses in Massachusetts. June’s going to be okay and I’m going to help her through this until she can stand on her own.   
  
If you’re ever down towards Austin, look us up.   
  
-Vriska

* * *

I wasn’t sure exactly why Vriska and June picked Austin, Texas as their ultimate destination. Vriska knew folks in the troll community down there, sure. But also… I think it was the fact that it was far away from where everything had happened. Having some connection down there almost seemed like an afterthought. It was their decision though, and I wasn’t going to begrudge them that. Honestly, I hoped that they were both going to be happy.

* * *

Jane & Terezi,   
  
I wanted to thank both of you for what you did. For me. For June and Vriska. For everyone up there. Honestly – probably for everyone in the world.   
  
I can’t remember what I saw in that book. Except that sometimes I can. It terrifies me. Whatever it was that was working through me that night, it’s not something I ever want back.   
  
It’s a part of my past I want to stay buried – all of it. I think that my mother wanted it to stay buried as well. I think she figured out that this was something that no one should ever toy with. Something that no one should have access to.   
  
What Kankri and Dirk were planning – nothing good could’ve come of any of it. I’m glad to have put that part of my past to rest.   
  
I know you and Terezi are staying in New York, so please know that Fairytale is always open to both of you. If you ever need help chasing down a lead – or just want to come hang out and talk for a while.   
  
Roxy and Kanaya are being really supportive. Having my big sis and my gal around is making this a lot easier than it would’ve been by myself. Still – don’t be strangers here!   
  
-Rose

* * *

I had a feeling that Rose LaLonde wouldn’t be sleeping very well for a while to come. Whether or not she could precisely remember what she’d been through, I’d seen her face in the unnamed village. I’d seen what had happened when the fabric between our reality and the one next door got stretched a little too thin.

It terrified me – it must have terrified Rose even more. I wasn’t the living conduit for something so utterly  _ beyond _ . That didn’t seem like something you could ever really forget.

* * *

Jane,   
  
I know this is going to sound weird because we don’t know each other very well, but could you please call sometime? You or Terezi, actually. Or both of you! I’ll send a letter or a telegram with the number when we’re set up in Texas.   
  
I’m not sleeping well. Vriska means well and she’s a huge help but I think she has a different view of things than I do. I love her, but this isn’t something she’s good at.   
  
I’m having a really hard time with the idea that I basically just snuffed out someone’s life. No matter how evil Dirk was – no matter what the outcome of his plans would’ve been. I can’t just tell my brain that I did the right thing, because it doesn’t work like that!   
  
So if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you for a while sometime. I don’t know why, but I feel like maybe the two of you might understand how I’m feeling. Vriska’s here to support me, and it would mean a lot if you two could help maybe balance that out a little, since we all kind of went through the same thing together.   
  
-June

* * *

I folded June’s letter back into my desk drawer and snugged myself up into my thick sweater. December had hit with a sudden cold snap that brought the temperature below freezing, and even with the heat on full blast it wasn’t completely taking the edge off.

Terezi had snuck over behind me while I was reading and stuck her hands down the top of the sweater.

“Oh jeez your hands are cold!” I yelled out, rocking back in my chair. Terezi  _ cackled _ at me. Some nerve!

“Why do you think I put them down here where it’s nice and warm?” She leaned over and pushed her hands further down, working around the buttons of the shirt I was wearing underneath.

“You stop it! What if a client walks in?”

Terezi planted a kiss on my ear and withdrew her hands. “You’re the boss, Ms. Crocker!”

I leaned back and smiled. “Okay… fine… we will close early and we can continue this discussion back at our apartment.”

“Oh,” Terezi said, her voice cheerful. “A change of venue! I like it!”

She bent over to kiss my neck, then paused. “What’s wrong? You smell…” She took a deep breath. “Like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

I sighed. “I just… everything that happened back in September… it was a lot. I feel like I had this whole vision of how things were and then it got torn off. And the weirdest thing is… it just feels kind of normal now. Like I just need to live with whatever the consequences are.”

“Mmm…” Terezi murmured and placed her hands on my shoulders, massaging gently. “You do realize that you’re fucking a creature who has literally come from another universe than your own, right?”

I blushed, deeply. I supposed that yes, I was rather pointedly aware of that fact.

“My point,” Terezi continued, “is that what’s normal and what’s not aren’t a lightswitch. It’s something that’s flexible and changes all the time. I think you already knew that though.”

“Yeah…” I said. “I’m just worried. About what’ll happen to everyone. About what’ll happen if there’s still members of the Order that agree with Kankri… or Dirk.”

“Then Porrim and Eridan and their folks will run them to ground and kill them. Besides… I think Dirk was unique. I don’t think he had  _ followers _ so much as people he was manipulating or threatening into doing what he wanted. Now that he’s dead, I don’t think that’ll be as effective a motivational tool as it was.”

She was, of course, right.

“Okay… I suppose I’m just being too gosh darn cautious.”

“I can understand why the last couple months might’ve made you a little gun-shy, Janey.”

I took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. It was whatever it was. Take it one day at a time.

I reached up toward Terezi and she bent over from behind me, leaning down until her soft lips pressed into mine. I opened my mouth a little and she leaned into the kiss – her lips were warm and her tongue tasted faintly of the coffee she’d been drinking earlier. Black coffee wasn’t quite as bad a flavor when I was tasting it like this.

We broke the kiss after a few seconds and Terezi stood back up. I had to admit that I did feel a little bit better.

“Forget it,” I said. “It’s cold and no one’s coming in right now. Let’s close up early and go back home. There’s stuff I need to do.”

“I’ll bet,” Terezi reached down and playfully ran her hand along my neck, into my sweater, and down my collar-bone. I laughed. After everything that had happened, it felt good to laugh.

Real life has a way of ending messily. There’s always loose threads – ends that don’t quite tie up properly. A  _ normal _ that’s always shifting and changing. But there were also a lot of opportunities to grab onto something that made me happy – to have a chance to enjoy myself a bit in the interim between one serious issue and another.

And on that cold December afternoon, I intended to walk back to the apartment I shared with Terezi and fully engage myself in one of those opportunities, for as long as myself and my extremely enthusiastic partner wanted.

So, ultimately, maybe not the cleanest end to a case – the big ones almost ended up just as complicated as they started. So not the cleanest by far – but I’d take it.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Twitter: www.twitter.com/AltUniverseWash  
> Tumblr: TransKanayaMaryam.tumblr.com


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